The Dark Returning
by FountainOfPens
Summary: First, Rose is partnered with Scorpius Malfoy for prefect duty. Then they discover a horrifying act of violence reminiscent of the Dark Lord her parents nearly died fighting. And now she's got to join forces with Scorpius to find out who did it? Come on.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note:** This story is rated M due to violence/mature themes. The pairing is indeed Rose/Scorpius, but they won't get together for a while, so just bear with me. The other stuff should be interesting. I don't own anyone but Isabella Zabini and anyone who doesn't have the last name of one of J.K. Rowling's characters. Enjoy!

**Prologue**

Rose Weasley was in a foul temper, not exactly an unusual state of affairs, but much less common this early in the school year. Her red, wavy hair was especially frizzy, her brown eyes dark with ill temper. Her friends and family could not muster up the courage to penetrate the black cloud of wrath surrounding her until dinnertime, at which point her cousin Albus Potter cleared his throat and said, "Er, Rose? Is something wrong? You've been stewing all day."

"We're worried about you," his sister Lily Potter added.

Rose sighed. "Yes, something is wrong." She scowled. "Just because he's the Head Boy—you know how I broke it off with Demetri last year?"

The Potter-Weasley clan nodded. A few winced. Demetri Ivers was the Ravenclaw golden boy, whom Rose had dated for three unstable months before deciding that hearing one's boyfriend talk about himself all the time was not worth said boyfriend's status and good looks, and this year he had been chosen as Head Boy. And then Rose had been chosen as one of the Gryffindor prefects—that alone had been worrying, because no matter what Demetri told his friends, the breakup hadn't been mutual.

"He's decided to take revenge on me," Rose continued, putting her head in her hands. Her cousins, brother and friends huddled closer around her. "He's—" the rest of her sentence was inaudible, drowned by her palms covering her mouth.

"Er… what?" asked Hugo, her brother. "Sorry, I couldn't—"

"He's forcing me to patrol with Scorpius Malfoy. Twice a week! For an hour each time!"

Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Lily laughed and said, "That's not so bad. I mean, will you look at him? That boy is _sexy_." She ignored the looks and eye-rolls from her male relatives.

Rose glared blackly at her. "I have, and that's not the point," she said icily.

Albus looked uncomfortable. After all, Scorpius was one of his best friends. It had mostly been Scorpius who had gotten him to accept that he was a Slytherin, and that that didn't mean he had to be evil or obsessed with pure blood. "Look, Rose—I'll talk to him. He'll be civil for my sake. If you are."

Rose gave him a cynical look. "Thanks, Al, but you won't exactly be there to monitor him. And it'd just scare me to see him being nice to me."

Albus smiled. "Oh, he's not all that mean to you. He does like you, you know."

Rose's eyebrows went to her hairline. "Really?"

The smile grew into a smirk reminiscent of the subject of their conversation. "In an 'isn't-it-fun-to-piss-her-off' kind of way."

"Oh, how charming," Rose said dryly.

"Well, whatever happens, it'll work out somehow," said Hugo. "Cheer up."

Rose smiled at her brother but replied, "I doubt it."

James snorted. "Look, Malfoy can be a git, but you'll be okay. It's not like you have to talk to him. It'll be unpleasant, but you won't die." And with the final word given by the eldest among them, the discussion ended, leaving Rose resigned to her fate but a little cheered nonetheless. She'd get through it. Demetri couldn't stay mad at her forever, right?


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

Rose sighed deeply as she walked to the agreed meeting place, apprehension bubbling in her gut. She really didn't know why she was so nervous—after all, like James said, she didn't have to talk to Malfoy, and it was only an hour of patrolling anyway—but no matter how many times she told herself it was irrational, the anxiety wouldn't dissipate.

Scorpius was waiting for her, leaning against the wall in that infuriatingly casual way he had, gray eyes flicking nonchalantly up and down her tense form before saying, "Good evening, Rose."

"Evening, Scorpius." _It feels weird to use his first name instead of Malfoy or git. I mean, I have in front of Albus, but…_ Rose cleared her throat. "Er, so should we get started?"

Scorpius stood straight, staring her in the face with his stormy eyes, pinning her to the spot. "Sure, but I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Shoot," Rose said uncertainly, finding she could move again as he started to walk.

"Did you do something to piss Ivers off recently?"

The question was so forthright and frank that it caught Rose off guard. She realized that he must not have known about her and Demetri, or else had forgotten. She figured it was the latter, seeing as Albus considered her meager private life fair game as a topic of conversation.

"Er—well—" she sighed. "We dated for three months and then I broke up with him at the end of last year, which he wasn't too happy about." She frowned. "Why?"

"So this is your fault." Scorpius sighed too. "I mean, I don't actually plan on fighting with you if I can avoid it—I don't want to lose my badge—but were I in his place, I'd avoid putting us together if possible. Just as a preventive measure—"

"We get on when Albus throws us together," Rose interjected defensively, feeling a bit guilty.

Scorpius smirked. "I suppose, and it's sweet of you to point that out—" he paused to watch her go red, gave a little laugh, and continued, "—but as a general rule, we get a bit… at each other's throats, otherwise. And anyway, he leered at you when he named us as partners."

Rose frowned. "Did he? I didn't catch it."

"It was quick." He paused. "Did you really date that prat for three months?"

"Yes! What's it to you?" Rose said huffily before thinking.

Scorpius chuckled. "I thought you had better judgment. I can barely put up with him for three minutes."

"You're just jealous because he out-prats you."

Scorpius grinned widely, batting his pale eyelashes at her. "Do you really think so? That's a first."

"Don't get your hopes up. He only wins by a little bit," Rose said with a grin of her own.

Scorpius snickered. "Come on. That's still practically a glowing recommendation coming from you. Don't you dare try and deny it."

"Well—"

Scorpius stopped, holding up a finger. "Hold on. I believe I hear the sound of illicit snogging."

They were quiet. Scorpius stared contemplatively at the floor and announced, "Come out of there, Isabella, or I'm reporting you to Slughorn."

Isabella Zabini stepped huffily out of the broom closet to their right, dragging a slightly shamefaced Evan Finnigan after her. "Come on, Scorpius. Why do you have to be such a party pooper?" She flipped her black hair over her shoulder in a prettily miffed fashion that she obviously thought would have Scorpius drooling.

He did not, and said something sharp back, but Rose heard nothing. She was too busy staring at Evan, aghast. "Evan? Bella Zabini? _Really_?" she asked, so surprised she didn't even add the customary tone of malice to the other girl's name.

"…Yeah." Was all Evan said, red to his hairline.

Scorpius and Isabella had finished talking, and were watching with interest. Rose cleared her throat. "Er, right. Evan, get back to your dorm." She looked at Scorpius, silently questioning him. She didn't really trust Isabella to go back to her dorm unaccompanied, but didn't feel comfortable saying so.

"You'll go back to the dungeons, Bella? Really?" Scorpius asked. "I'll know if you don't."

Bella sighed. "Fine." She turned on her heel and marched off. Rose and Scorpius started to walk again. As soon as Bella was out of earshot, Scorpius said, "Advise Evan to break up with her."

Rose frowned. "Huh? Why? Because they're in different Houses?"

Scorpius shook his head. "She's using him to try and get at me. If she didn't want to be caught, she wouldn't have been."

"What? Does she like you?"

Scorpius shrugged, replying with careful indifference, "For upwards of two years."

Rose raised her eyebrows. "And you don't reciprocate? Why? She's very pretty." As far as Rose could tell, that was about the only criterion by which Scorpius judged suitable women.

"Getting personal, aren't we?" Scorpius's voice had an edge that almost made her physically recoil. But he sighed and continued, "But—I just don't feel that way about her. And I mean, I tend to bounce around a bit—I don't stick with one girl for very long. If I do stay with someone, they really mean something to me. But with her, I'd stay because I'd feel guilty, and then I'd feel trapped."

Rose shrugged. "I don't think much of guys who do that, but—I guess I understand what you're saying." She paused awkwardly. "Thanks for telling me."

Scorpius shifted uncomfortably. "Er—thanks for listening."

"Oh, of course. No problem." Rose said seriously. They walked in silence for a bit.

Rose was spacing out, not really seeing her surroundings, when Scorpius grabbed her arm, face white. "Rose! Holy shit, _look_!"

She did, and went pale herself. Hanging right there, held up by wrists that had been nailed to the wall, was Ella Rhees. Ella was a Hufflepuff girl in their year whom Rose remembered vaguely as being a sweet girl, though a bit uncomfortable in her own skin.

Scorpius ran over to the prone girl, checking her breathing. She was alive, but unconscious, no doubt due to blood loss. "Rose, I want you to get Madam Pomfrey, but first you need to see this." Rose obeyed, walking over on jellified legs. Her eye moved next to where Scorpius's white hand leaned on the wall.

Above poor Ella's head, in green ink on a piece of school parchment, someone had drawn a crude rendition of the Dark Mark.

#

Slughorn and McGonagall were in their night robes, which would have amused Rose and no doubt Scorpius as well had they not been in this situation.

After they had discovered Ella and the Dark Mark, Rose had gotten Madam Pomfrey as per Scorpius's instruction, and she had in turn told Rose to get the Headmistress and Slughorn while she saw to Ella. They had just repeated the story to both of their teachers, who now sat in horrified contemplation of what they had just heard.

Finally, after about five minutes of highly disturbed silence, Slughorn began, "Mr. Malfoy, you are very popular amongst our House—"

"Sir, Professor McGonagall, I swear to you that if I knew anything about this I would have volunteered it immediately. I do not possess the cruelty of my grandfather, nor the cowardice of my father." He bit his lip. "I don't know who would do such a thing. I could guess, but it would be a very uncertain one, and I wouldn't want to point fingers unjustly."

Rose stared. This was not the flippant Scorpius she knew, the one she traded glares and repartee with in the halls and who seemed not to have a care in the world. This boy looked sober and sad, and she actually felt sorry for him. She tentatively put her hand on his arm. He looked at her for a second, bust didn't move away.

"Your cooperation is much appreciated, Mr. Malfoy, and I won't put you in the position of possibly wrongly accusing your friends." Scorpius relaxed a little, and McGonagall turned to Rose. "Ms. Weasley, I don't suppose you know anything?"

Rose gulped, shook her head. "Just—this is terrible. Ella didn't deserve—no one deserves—" she stopped.

"Horace?" McGonagall asked.

"No, Minerva, I know nothing. But I will interrogate each of my students."

"And I will be present at these interrogations." McGonagall turned back to the two prefects. "I am sorry that you children had to witness this, and grateful that you came to us immediately." Her gaze flicked involuntarily towards Scorpius. Rose saw his fists clench, and her heart bled for him. "You are excused from classes tomorrow in the event that they continue, which I doubt. Please return to your bedrooms now." They nodded and went outside.

As soon as the door to McGonagall's office swung shut, Rose asked, "Scorpius, are you okay? I mean, what McGonagall did back there was—"

"No more than I expected. I was sure she'd incarcerate me on the spot."

Rose went to his side, putting her hand on his shoulder to get a better view of his face. "But are you okay? Do you want to talk about it? If there's anything I can do—"

"I'll be all right." He said curtly, then continued haltingly, "You're—you're a very sweet girl when you want to be, Rose. I—thank you. To be honest, I thought you'd blame me, too."

Rose smiled slightly. "I'm glad you think so, although I haven't really given you reason to. And—you might be a rude little git—" she smiled to take the edge of the insult—"but like you said, you're not cruel. You'd never do something like that."

He smiled a bit as well. "I'm glad you think so." He sighed. "I—we both should be getting on. Good night, Rose."

"Good night, Scorpius." She watched him walk off for a minute, then shook herself and went on her own way.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Usually Hogwarts students were given leave to trickle into breakfast at their leisure, or even to skip it altogether in favor of cramming or sleeping in. However, this morning the Heads of House and other teachers they recruited woke up each and every student and escorted all of each House to the Great Hall. Being in the same House, Albus and a very tight-faced Scorpius went down together, accompanied by Slughorn. Albus noted his friend's strained expression and asked, "Scor? Do you know what's going on here?"

"Er—you'll—you'll see soon enough, Al. I can't talk about it."

Albus frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you okay?"

Scorpius let out a gusty sigh. "Yeah, somehow. And—I—Albus, look, you'll hear it at announcements this morning."

Albus's frown grew deeper. He put his hand on Scorpius's arm. "Are you sure—"

"Al, for the love of god, shut up. Thanks for your concern, but I—I just can't…"

Albus was quiet, but he didn't take his eyes off his friend the whole way to the Great Hall. Slytherin House was the second House to arrive, Gryffindor of course being the first. Scorpius looked up and met brown eyes across the room. They stared agitatedly into his for about a minute before being torn away. Scorpius frowned slightly. _What are you doing, Rose?_

She rummaged in her bag, coming up with a quill and a small piece of scrap parchment. She scribbled an efficient note, brought the parchment to her mouth, whispered a charm, and blew. Scorpius raised his eyebrows, catching her eye again. She grimaced slightly, eyes flicking to the note now resting in front of him. Scorpius smiled slightly and picked it up. His smile grew a bit wider. _She has really bloody terrible handwriting._ The note said:

_Malfoy, do you know what they're going to do?_

Scorpius hummed slightly in thought. He absently reached into his school bag, finding a quill of his own. He thought a bit more, then wrote, _No, but if they've any sense at all they won't name us. _He paused. _They've got to bring the Ministry in. This is too big for them to sort out._ Scorpius repeated Rose's motion and charm, sending the parchment flapping over to her in the shape of a paper bird.

Rose rolled her eyes at his showing off, but snatched the note out of the air, reading it quickly. She started to write an answer, but Scorpius noticed that McGonagall was up on stage, standing before the podium. He waved at Rose, eyes boring into her in order to get her attention. She looked up at him questioningly, and his eyes flicked to where McGonagall was apparently making an elaborate occasion out of clearing her throat.

Rose's eyes followed his, and both of their attentions turned to the Headmistress.

"You have all been called here this morning due to a most disturbing incident that occurred last night. Miss Ella Rhees of Hufflepuff was done an act of violence that can only be described as horrific." She stopped. "The perpetrators _will_ come forward. And if they do not, we will just remove privileges and interrogate any suspects until we find the culprits."

Scorpius met Rose's eyes again, seeing his own expression and thoughts mirrored there: _What?_

Rose's head bent again, and soon enough Scorpius felt a piece of parchment nudging his hand.

_Why the bloody hell didn't they say they'd involve the Ministry?_

Scorpius smiled a wry, hopeless smile and jotted, _Well, either they are stupid and don't think things are quite that dire yet, or they don't plan on involving the Ministry, which is quite simply mental._ He sent her the note, saw her nod as she read it. She poised her quill to write a response, but her eyes lost focus for a second, no doubt reminded of something. Then her face grew hard, and she scrawled a simple response, sending the note shooting towards his face with the force of a bullet. He had to clap his hands over the note to stop it from cutting up his face. He read it.

_I want to know who did this._

He looked at her, confused. By now he was giving up all pretense of listening to McGonagall. After all, he knew what had happened. Rose's brown eyes hadn't lost their dangerous edge. He drummed a light, short pattern on the table, disturbed. He carefully wrote out, _We all do._

He watched her face as she read it, giving a little exasperated sigh and scratching out something in reply. His eyebrows shot up when he saw it: _But it's obvious Hogwarts is not going to go about this the way it needs to. I think we need to take matters into our own hands. _

Scorpius let out a slow breath. _Can we discuss after breakfast? I'm a fast eater, so I should be done by eight-thirty, provided McGonagall stops yammering._

Instead of writing him a note back, Rose just caught his eye and nodded. Scorpius gave her a final nod of his own, acknowledging that he'd seen. Then Albus tugged his sleeve and began interrogating Scorpius. He tried to answer his friend's questions as best he could, but even the memory of Ella, just—hanging there… He shuddered violently, provoking another worried stare from Albus.

"Mate…"

Scorpius swallowed hard. "I'll be all right. It's just—you don't know what it was _like_, especially when I saw the—the Dark Mark…"

Albus was looking at him like he was insane. "Dark Mark? What?"

Scorpius stared back. "McGonagall didn't tell you lot about it?"

"No, she never said anything about a Dark Mark," said Albus carefully. "Was—was there one?"

Scorpius looked around. No one was paying attention, so he leaned closer and murmured, "If you tell anyone, you're worse than dead."

Albus nodded shortly. "Got it."

Scorpius sighed. "When we found Ella, someone had drawn a Dark Mark on a piece of paper and stuck it above her head. It—it was really disturbing."

Albus was silent for a moment. "That is the fucking understatement of the year," he said quietly. "Disturbing? Bloody hell, Scorpius."

But Scorpius was getting up, having locked eyes with a certain Gryffindor across the Hall and noting wryly in his thoughts that he and she had become masters of nonverbal communication.

Albus looked amused. "Since when are you so chummy with my cousin?"

Scorpius sighed. "Since she's decided to drag me even deeper into this damn mess," he muttered cryptically, and started off after Rose's impatient, fast-retreating form.

#

"So," said Rose, sitting across from him at a bare mahogany table in the Room of Requirement, "I think that if they won't bring the Ministry into this, we have to do something."

Scorpius looked at her, eyebrows arched. "You are not seriously Gryffindoring out and expecting me to join in?"

Rose raised an eyebrow of her own. "I'm not Gryffindoring out. And anyway, who do you think is going to get blamed if we don't find out who really did it soon?"

Scorpius paled slightly, gripping the edge of the table. "Slytherin House, I know. I know, damn you." He raked a hand through his hair. "But… what makes you think we could find things out the teachers couldn't?"

Rose grinned. "The teachers don't have my uncle's invisibility cloak."

Scorpius's eyes snapped to her face, studying her. "And we do?"

The grin widened. "And some other useful items."

"Plus your bevy of cousins at our disposal." Scorpius stopped, realizing what he'd just said. "Oh fuck. Damn it. I really am going to do this with you, aren't I?"

Rose shrugged. "If you want. It will be dangerous, and probably time-consuming and difficult. Who am I to consign you to anything, let alone something as arduous as this?" She paused. "But—whatever happens, I'm going to find out what's going on here. Who did this. And you're intelligent when you want to be, Scorpius. I could use your help."

Scorpius snorted. "Intelligent when I want to be. Really, you shouldn't dote on me so, Rose." His face turned serious and he laced his fingers together, thinking. Finally he looked up at her. He smiled slightly and offered a hand. "I'll go along with your crazy scheme, if only for the honor of Slytherin House—although it probably was one of us. And of course for the rare experience of having a Malfoy come out the hero." He grinned sardonically.

Rose shook her head, but she was smiling and did not hesitate to take his hand. "Excuses, excuses," she quipped, and they were truly allies.


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

They didn't begin their investigation for a few days, giving themselves time to get over what had happened and to stew over ideas. Rose was not having a particularly good day regarding the second pursuit, unless one counted stewing over the completely random and questionable idea she had had the day everyone else found out what had been done to Ella Rhees. What the _hell_ had possessed her? She was now consigning herself to spending an indefinite amount of time around Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. It was true that two heads were better than one, and she probably couldn't count on, well, _any_ of her cousins to exhibit the discretion something like this required, but seriously? Couldn't she have picked _anyone_ else to impulsively recruit?

_Well, the thing was, he was _there_, _said her brain, trying to defend itself. She sighed, fingers absently enmeshed in the fringes hanging from the canopy above her bed. Her friends and roommates had gone out, no doubt basking in the sunshine on the Quidditch Pitch or by the lake, and she was grateful for the quiet she received as a result.

She sat up, sighing. Well, what was done was done, even if it would probably turn out to be extremely ill advised. She ought to start thinking about how exactly to go about this investigation. She bit her lip. She really had only the vaguest idea about how something like this would go. Hesitantly, she reached over to her bag and got out a piece of parchment and a quill. She wrote the words "People to Interview" across the top, and then below it "Ella Rhees." After a little while, she added Bella Zabini and Evan Finnigan to the list. That would be awkward, but it was possible that they'd seen her, if they hadn't come down the hall from the stairs as Rose and Scorpius had. But if they had, why the bloody _hell_ hadn't they come for help? Bella Zabini might be a Slytherin, but no one was quite that selfish or cruel. Although it was possible that if she'd seen Ella, she didn't want to report it because she was afraid she'd be blamed… but then there was Evan. Evan was a Gryffindor—and he might have been afraid of getting in trouble for being out of his dorm after curfew, but surely the fact that Ella was hurt mattered more. And then there was the Dark Mark…

Rose rubbed her temples. This investigation was hard work, and she hadn't even started the interviews yet. She looked at her list again. Three people. Well, it was a start, wasn't it? She couldn't put more names on the list without more information. Sure, she might suspect such a violent act of, say, Greg Goyle II, but then she was getting into questionable territory and being just as discriminatory as McGonagall had been last night.

Scorpius had said he could guess—but his guesses would be only slightly more reliable than hers. She would only ask him about it if the interviews with the other three drew a blank. Which she mostly doubted, at least in Ella's case.

She leaned against the headboard. Who the _fuck_ would want to relive the terror of Voldemort in any way? It was just after his style, sure enough, although the perpetrators so far seemed not to be as skilled in magic as the Dark Lord. Poor Ella was Muggleborn, and very insecure about the fact, which made the crime doubly sick and cruel.

She looked at the time. It was about ten o' clock, and Rose realized that she was going to go stir crazy and probably wouldn't get anywhere with this if she didn't go out, so she tugged on a solid blue fitted t-shirt, jeans, and trainers, tapping her wand at her hair and practically running outside. Once she was in the open air, she closed her eyes and happily sucked in a breath.

"Ah, if it isn't Shirley Holmes."

Rose smirked and without opening her eyes extended her middle finger.

Scorpius chuckled. "So have you thought about our little project? It's been three days."

She opened her eyes. Scorpius stood in front of her in a black sweater and dark jeans. His pale hair was in his eyes. Rose decided he'd done that on purpose. She sighed. "As it happens, dear Watson, I have," she said with a small smile, "and I haven't gotten too far. I think we definitely need to talk to Ella, and probably Bella and Evan as well, just in case."

Scorpius frowned. "But if they saw her and didn't do anything…"

"I know. It's disturbing, especially considering Evan's in my House, but still."

"And if they didn't see her, they're useless."

Rose quirked an eyebrow. "Interestingly worded." Scorpius smirked. "And you said you could make guesses, but I figure we should leave that until we're desperate."

Scorpius nodded shortly. "Right." He bit his lip. "Er, well—those guesses that I mentioned—their accuracy may have gone up a bit."

"What happened?" Rose said before the sentence was even fully out of his mouth.

He quirked an amused pale brow, then said, "Eager, aren't we? But not here, dear lioness. There are eyes and ears around every corner at this school." He scoffed gently, his gray eyes suddenly soft. "Bloody gossip-mongers." He sighed. "Anyway, I think we ought to talk in the Room of Requirement or the Library. Library's a bit more public, but if all else fails, we can tell people we're going out." He flashed her a salacious grin.

"Fuck off, Malfoy! Can you please be serious?" Rose growled. Finally she was getting somewhere, getting to think that maybe this whole working-with-Malfoy thing was a good idea, and then there he went bloody _grinning_ at her and making _comments_ as though she were some common slut he could just…

"Can _you_ calm your righteous fire? It was just a bit of a joke." His eyes flashed in that particular way they had, his face contorted in annoyance. The expression was familiar to Rose; he always seemed to wear it around her.

She sighed deeply. "I—I might have overreacted a bit there. But seriously, we are not telling _anyone_ that we are involved in any way." She folded her arms protectively over her chest. "And I'm not your dear bloody anything."

He looked highly amused, the expressive eyes bright, and he said, "Why, certainly. Rude of me to presume." He coughed a cough that was clearly a laugh and continued, "So—to the Room of Requirement?"

Rose gave a shallow sigh. "Lead the way, Malfoy." She felt a twinge of regret, as she would have liked to spend time outside, but then she thought of Ella Rhees and how she'd just been bleeding and bleeding… This was more important.

Rose realized that Scorpius had said something. "Oh—what was that, Malfoy?"

"I think we ought to be on a first-name basis, since we're working together and all." He said the words in such a blasé, flippant way, but there was something dissonant behind them that belied the falsity of his tone.

"Er—fine." She hesitated, then added in a stilted voice, "Scorpius."

He laughed. "Glad you agree, Rose."

It was so unfair that he obviously felt at ease using her first name when she felt so strange about using his. Even worse, her traitorous name slid attractively off of his cultured tongue, sounding as if it belonged there. Well, it clearly did not.

"Take a deep breath, Rose, it'll do you good."

No, her name really didn't belong on Scorpius Malfoy's tongue, especially when it dripped with sarcasm thick and viscous as treacle. "I'll breathe when I so wish, Scorpius," she said breezily, only giving his name the slightest mocking slant.

"You would, you entitled little Gryffindor." But there was quiet amusement in his voice instead of the usual acridity. She had to laugh a little too.

They stepped into the Room of Requirement, which looked the same as it had when she had asked Scorpius to help her with this case. Rose smirked slightly as they took their seats. _Case. Makes it sound so official. I guess I am Shirley Holmes now._

"So." Rose leaned back in her chair, stretching. "The accuracy of your guesses?"

Scorpius sighed. "Yes." His eyes flicked up to hers. "And I can confide in you without fear of losing my badge?"

Rose quirked an eyebrow. "My cousin lent you the Cloak, didn't he?"

Scorpius's eyes sparked. "Perhaps. In any case, I had been-"

"Sneaking about," Rose supplied, and Scorpius rolled his eyes.

"If you so wish. I was walking down the hall by the Ravenclaw dorms."

"You're not seriously about to say what I think you're about to say, are you?" Rose asked tersely.

"I recognized one voice saying something rather incriminating, yes."

"If you say—"

"If you continue to interrupt me, Rose, I will not deign to tell you at all." He grinned at her as she snapped her mouth shut and sat straighter, but it was a shadow of a grin, and Rose's chest grew a bit tight. _If Scorpius Malfoy is upset, this must be bad._

"So the voice that I recognized was praising the impromptu Dark Mark as a masterstroke, and it was indubitably the voice of one Annabeth Winston."

Rose sat there, blinking furiously. "That—that can't be right. The Head Girl? There has to be some explanation—"

"Well... there is." Scorpius sighed, seeing her expression. "I can't help what I heard, Rose. I'm sorry."

"We—I want to check this out. Annabeth fucking Winston? The pinnacle of Hufflepuff innocence?"

Scorpius was looking at the table, gray eyes suddenly disturbingly dead. Rose leaned forward, about to ask what was wrong, when he said, "I will swear under Veritaserum, dammit. I swear now on whatever semblance of honor my family possesses that I heard Annabeth fucking Winston, as you say, talking about how the Dark Mark was, and I quote, a masterstroke. Okay?"

Rose sat in openmouthed shock for a minute, then grabbed his hand to get his attention. "Malfoy. _Malfoy_. Scorpius! Look at me _now_." He did so at last with baleful eyes, and Rose realized she was right. "Bloody _fucking_ hell, but you're sensitive. I never implied nor intended to imply that I didn't trust you, all right? Fuck. It's just, I've known Annabeth since I started here, and she seems exactly—well, exactly what she seems. Hugging kittens and all that. I can't believe she would—but not because it was you that told me, okay?"

Scorpius gave a weak laugh. "You thought I got upset over that? Get over yourself, Rose." She noticed that he had still used her first name, though he was being sarcastic. She also noticed that she was still holding his hand, and carefully extricated her own from it, thinking, _When did I get so physical?_

He sighed. "I—what should we do about Annabeth?"

Rose sighed too. She thought for a moment. "I don't want to confront her. That's terrifying on so many levels." Scorpius nodded slightly, watching her curiously. "But I do think," she said carefully, meeting his gaze, "that we should make good use of my cousin's cloak tonight."

Scorpius smiled briefly. "I heard her around one in the morning, or just before."

Rose nodded. "But we'll meet at midnight."

He grinned, putting a hand to his forehead and miming a swoon. "Till then, my love!"

"Shut up." Then she added slightly bashfully, knowing her reaction may have been a bit over the top, "See you."

That smirk again. "Or," he said, "as the case may be—not."


	5. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

Scorpius had agreed to meet Rose just outside her dorm, which he was now regretting immensely. For one thing, it increased the likelihood of getting in serious trouble if he was caught (_never bloody _mind_ about the Cloak, I could still get caught, and if I did…_), but for another, the castle was bitterly cold, and he had forgotten a sweater. He was wearing a gray t-shirt and comfortable jeans, comfortable yet close-fitting—optimal for sneaking about at night. _But not optimal for keeping out the cold._

He knew that once he turned the corner, he would see the Fat Lady in all her face-masked (he'd heard rumors) and bathrobed glory. He heard her snores now, vibrating through his already shivering body. _God _damn_ it, how do these Gryffindors sleep?_

He walked over to the portrait, careful to keep his footfalls quiet against the stone floor. He sighed, leaning against the wall. After about five minutes, the portrait swung open, red hair shining dully in the moonlight flooding from the window on the other end of the hall. Rose Weasley stepped carefully out of the Gryffindor common room, shutting the portrait quietly behind her. She began to walk towards the hallway Scorpius had come from, frowning.

Not knowing what else to do—he couldn't call out to her, could he? —Scorpius quickly came up behind Rose and thrust the cloak over her, shoving his hand over her mouth to stifle her surprised cry. She struggled in his grip but he bent to her ear and hissed, "Shh, shh, it's me! I didn't know what else to _do_! I'm sorry!"

She relaxed a bit, going still, and he took his hand away from her mouth. She turned to face him with an irate stare. "You could have used your brain, is what you could have done!"

Scorpius couldn't help rolling his eyes. "And how might you have done it, o clever detective, master of subterfuge?"

"I would've tugged your wrist first or something!"

"Mm-hmm. Because that's so much better." He sighed. "All right. So I saw Winston by the Ravenclaw dorms, as I said."

"Right. Forward march, then?"

"On three?"

She shook her head, but Scorpius thought he saw a restrained smile. "You are so irritating," she said, but in a way that made him amused instead of irritated as well. _I'm in a good mood tonight. Weird. I should feel tense, shouldn't I?_ He shook his head slightly too. Rose started to walk, and he followed, careful to match his pace to hers.

"Umm—what are we going to do if she doesn't show? If no one shows?"

"Then," said Scorpius firmly, "we are going to feel rather stupid and like we are wasting our time." He thought a bit. "You brought the Marauder's Map, didn't you?"

Rose raised her eyebrows. "You know about that?"

Scorpius snorted. "Albus. Best friend. Pranks. Yes?"

"Shut up. Anyway, I did, and as it happens, I've just realized how stupid we are."

"We?" Scorpius paused. "Why are we stupid?"

"Because we could have just checked whether Annabeth and whoever she was with are out and about, and where they are."

"Well?" Scorpius stopped. "Have a look at it, then."

Rose brought the folded Map out of her pocket and tapped it with her wand, murmuring, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

"For once. Kind of." Scorpius quipped, grinning at her. She rolled her eyes as the ink revealing all of Hogwarts' nooks and crannies spread across the Map, but he thought he saw a smile hidden beneath her red curls. _Progress_, Scorpius thought a tad smugly.

Scorpius leaned over her shoulder, trying to get a look at the Map. There were a surprising amount of dots moving about the school. "Ooh boy. I wish it were still early enough for us to be doing rounds. We'd have a party," he murmured somewhat absently, trying to read the overlapping names.

"Mm." There was quiet as they scanned the parchment before them. "I don't see her on here," said Rose eventually.

"Could be she's in the Room of Requirement. Either that, or her buddies decided not to take her on this particular escapade. Assuming there is one."

"Oh! I meant to ask you, but I forgot—did you recognize anyone else's voice?"

"Shit," Scorpius breathed out, thinking. He had been so stunned at hearing Winston's voice saying such things as it had been saying that he hadn't really thought about the other voices. "I—shit. I can't really remember. I don't think I did."

"It's fine. You gave us the lead on Annabeth," Rose said, giving him a small smile. Suddenly, Scorpius knew exactly why Rose had gotten Ivers' attention, even though he was more into blond bimbos because his ego couldn't stand a girl being as smart or smarter than him (_Pot calling the kettle black re the blond bimbos at least_, said a part of him, but he tied it up and threw it in a corner, protesting loudly that he really had a thing for redheads).

"So what now?" he asked distractedly, wondering why the hell he was getting so flustered just because it was him, Rose Weasley and the Invisibility Cloak in an empty hallway…

His eyes widened. _Oh no. Oh shit. No. Can't happen. I need sex and sleep. There is just _no_ fucking _way_ I can think about Rose Weasley that way. No._

But Rose was saying something, and he forced himself to look into her pale moonlit face and not at her lips moving as she talked. "…go for the groups, see if we can overhear anything else convenient."

"Oh, er…" Scorpius thought for a minute, realized what she must have said and that it was a pretty good idea, and replied, "Yeah. Two questions, though. How do we decide which group to eavesdrop on, and why are there so damn many people outside of their dorms at this hour?"

Rose answered almost before the second question was out of his mouth. "Quidditch."

"Oh. Right." The Quidditch season was starting next Friday with a Slytherin v. Hufflepuff game. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws couldn't afford not to use the planning time, however, which would explain why they were out, too. It had become a Hogwarts tradition to try to sabotage the other House in your House's first game of the season in the most overblown, chaotic, havoc-causing manner possible without getting caught. He and Albus had pulled it off back in Third Year, and had decided not to try to top themselves, although they usually took a walk under the Invisibility Cloak before the first four games to watch others' pathetic attempts.

Scorpius looked at the Map again. There seemed to be five groups of people, with a few outliers sneaking about various passageways. He frowned, noticing more Slytherins than anyone from any other House. They knew better than that. He and Albus were especially good at what they did, and Albus of course was the great Harry Potter's son, so if they got caught (which was unlikely) they probably wouldn't get in too much trouble unless they'd done something really bad. Well… Albus wouldn't get in trouble, and then he'd bail Scorpius out.

But that wasn't really true for other Slytherins. It hadn't, after all, been so long since the war, and people _remembered_ about the Slytherins. Some English wizards who sent their children to Hogwarts even disowned them if they were Sorted into Slytherin.

He made himself to focus. Looking at the groups, he realized that they were mostly nearby their own Houses. Ivers was of course in the Ravenclaw group, and Albus looking out for the Slytherins despite his lack of the Cloak. There was no one by the Hufflepuff dorm, obviously. And then he saw the outlying group. And then he swore.

"Tell me that's not Greg Goyle over there."

Rose turned her eyes to where he was pointing and said in a neutral, questioning tone, "It is."

Scorpius groaned as quietly as he could. "God _damn_ that little shit! We have to see what he's up to. Now."

Rose turned to look at him, eyebrows at her hairline.

Scorpius sighed, running a tired hand through his hair. "Look, Greg Goyle is mostly the one who carries on the tradition of Slytherins being assholes. Not that we're all pure and good or anything. But we're just—careful. That is, everyone except that bloody…" he sighed again. "Look, I can't talk about this now. And I wouldn't ask me again later unless you're prepared for a long, angry rant. Can we go get Greg in trouble now?"

Rose was looking at him oddly. "Um… sure." There was something odd in her eyes that Scorpius couldn't place. He was about to ask her what the deal was, but she looked down and started moving, and his energy was directed towards keeping up with her while attempting to make his steps as quiet as the carefully soft scuff of her sneakers against the stone floors. She was shorter than him, but still rather tall for a girl, and quick to boot. When they were about halfway towards Greg Goyle and his cronies, he gave up and put his hands on her shoulders.

She jumped about five feet in the air. "What are you doing?" she hissed angrily, brown eyes flashing as she turned to face him.

"Trying to keep up with you! Honestly, Rose, give me some credit! If I'd wanted to feel you up, I sure as hell would not do it while we're trying to spy on Greg Goyle!"

She turned a bit red, her voice again cutting through the quiet like a throwing knife, "You could've said something!"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. _What a time for her me-centric haphephobia to kick in! We have to catch Greg Goyle in the act, dammit!_ "Like what? My dear Miss Weasley, would you mind if I placed my unworthy hands on your shoulders so that I can keep up with your unnaturally quick feet?"

She answered this with an eyeroll of her own and a bit of a snarl as she continued, "Well, you could've just—"

"Mrs. Norris? Mrs. Norris!"

Horrified gazes met, and two teeth drew blood from two pairs of lips. They stepped closer together in hopes that the Cloak would cover them more completely, not daring even to breathe. Despite being old enough to be Methuselah's father and a Squib, Argus Filch still possessed supernatural hearing. Scorpius looked beyond Rose standing rigidly in front of him to see the old man's figure faintly delineated in the post-midnight gloom, his footsteps and cane striking the floor in a familiar clattering rhythm.

"Mrs. Norris! Has those nasty students stolen my sweetums again?"

Scorpius had to bite the inside of his cheek hard, shaking with pent-up laughter. Since Rose was standing so close, he could feel her caged giggles rattling her ribs, too. Her eyes were lit with amusement, previous anger forgotten as she mouthed, "Sweetums?"

He grinned, mouthing back, "Animal husbandry."

She made a face. "Thanks for the image."

They waited in silence until they were sure Filch was gone, checked that Goyle and company were still conducting their illicit business, and ran as fast as they could without making noise. Luckily, Goyle and his friends were still at it, and there was a convenient alcove nearby.

Scorpius was really, really hoping Goyle would say something like, "So who's our next innocent Mudblood victim?" but what he got was almost as good.

"…trick on Winston was pretty funny, yeah, but it was also juvenile. Our next act definitely should be something totally different."

"Trick? Juvenile? This doesn't make sense," said Rose quietly beside him, contemplative.

Scorpius was nowhere near as calm. He was livid. This was definitely conclusive proof that that bastard had done something! "Bullshit! Of course it makes sense! The son of a bitch Imperiused Winston and—" but Rose was pulling him back and hissing, "Shh, shh! Wait! We _cannot_ do anything rash—come on, Malfoy, you're better than this—"

It was Goyle's curious, "Did you hear something?" that finally stopped Scorpius's thrashing. There were a few murmurs from the party, none of whom Scorpius recognized based on appearance or voice alone.

"All right. Anyway, I think we should do something really original." Goyle rubbed his hands together. Scorpius thought about putting his hands around Goyle's neck.

Apparently Rose could somehow sense his distraction, because she murmured in his ear, "Pay attention. See if you can recognize anyone. I've had no luck."

Scorpius took a calming breath and forced himself to listen.

"Well, what do you mean, original?"—Unfamiliar voice.

"Just—not stealing brooms, I guess,"—Unfamiliar voice, strange words.

"Stealing brooms?" he whispered to Rose.

"I'm thinking that this isn't what you thought." Was all she said in reply.

There was a bit of back and forth about what Goyle meant by original, and how everything had been done already. Scorpius was starting, he thought, to get it. This was no sinister meeting. This was a discussion about first-Quidditch-game sabotage. But then, what were Albus and the rest of them doing? Could it be that Goyle had somehow heard them and was making conversation about a more innocent topic on purpose? But how could he have let everyone else know that was what he was doing so fast?

The suspicion that this was about Quidditch was further confirmed when he realized that two of the voices he was hearing belonged to two First Years whose names he couldn't remember at the moment. His heart began to sink, but he was quickly distracted from this by the fact that he was dead tired, and if Goyle or one of his compatriots didn't say something incriminating or (god forbid) exonerating soon, he was going to nod off where he stood. Rose didn't seem too awake either, seeing as her head jerked every few minutes, straight where it had been tilted with sleep before. "Glad it's a Saturday tomorrow," Rose said.

Scorpius chuckled. "You're still paying attention, right?"

Finally the clincher came at about one-thirty. Scorpius was so tired that by this point he was grateful for it. One of the First Years whined, "Why aren't we with the big group, anyway?"

Goyle growled. "Because _we_ are going to do something more drastic! The Hufflepuffs will never play Quidditch again, much less during our game Friday!"

There was a silence. "But… nothing that'll hurt them."

Goyle rolled his eyes. "No, duh. Malfoy would have my head."

Scorpius grinned, turning to Rose, and realized with mild shock that she was grinning back. "Poor widdle Greg Goyle. Doesn't wanna mess with big, scary Scorpius," she murmured.

Scorpius was unnaturally happy over the fact that she'd used his first name unintentionally. "Oh, I'm scary when I want to be," he said, leering at her.

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling again, and she said, "Let's just get back to our rooms and to sleep, hmm?"

Scorpius waited until they were out of earshot of Goyle and his group before asking, "How are we doing this? We've only got the one Cloak."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Can't I just drop you in front of the dorm when no one's looking?"

"Ah. Well, if you want to do things the easy way." She laughed.

In no time at all, they stood in front of the Slytherin dorms, Scorpius leaning against the wall next to the portrait, Rose with the Invisibility Cloak over her arm. The darkness of the dungeons didn't lessen the glow of Rose's face in the dark, only seeming to diffuse it, making a sort of halo. Scorpius knew he was probably tired and that this was Rose Weasley and therefore these thoughts were patently ridiculous, but he couldn't help thinking that she looked ethereal and beautiful, and that he didn't want to forget her looking at him in the faint light of the dungeons.

"So what will we do next?"

Rose thought a minute. "Same time tomorrow?"

Scorpius moaned. "I have to sleep sometime!"

"And what if they do something while you're sleeping?"

He sighed. "All right. But none of this on schooldays, or at least not this late."

"Agreed."

The portrait door slowly swung open, and they started, rushing to get the Invisibility Cloak over themselves, until they saw green eyes and messy black hair. Albus laughed. "You know it doesn't go on that way, right?"

Scorpius stepped out from under the Cloak, grinning, and walked over to give his best friend a shove. "Git."

"Oh, shush. I am, after all, the git making sure you get back to the dorm okay at one-thirty in the morning."

"True." Scorpius started to climb inside the common room, then turned back. He smiled at Rose. "Goodnight, Rose. See you tomorrow night."

"See you." Her gaze turned to Albus, and Scorpius noticed how her face opened up, how she looked at her cousin with such shining, loving eyes. "And _you_—I'll deal with _you_ later."

Albus snorted, returning his cousin's gaze with equal filial affection. "Catch me if you can."

"I will. You'd better not have planned anything really terrible for the Hufflepuffs."

"I don't see why you care, but you know I only watch these days anyway."

She smiled. "Sure. Good night, Al. Sleep well."

He smiled back. "You too. And don't mess with our sleep cycles too often, yeah?"

She smirked mischievously and disappeared. They heard light footsteps echoing into the perpetual night of the dungeons.

Albus was looking at Scorpius, studying him. Then he asked, "Scorpius, what do you think of my cousin?"

Scorpius knew what Albus wanted him to say, what he ought to say, what he wanted to say, and what he really didn't want to say. He was too tired for any of these, so he said, "I think her circadian rhythms are off," and started towards the dorms, his friend behind him shaking his head.


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

Rose absolutely crashed upon returning to her room, managing to sleep until about eleven-thirty, when her cousin Lily Luna barged in with some nonsense about some man-whore being caught in the broom closet with some dumb bint. She didn't pay much attention—never did, as she really could not care less about who was sleeping with whom. A fleeting thought that maybe she should start listening to Lily a) because she was her cousin, after all, and b) because she might get news about Ella darted through Rose's mind. Which reminded her that she should go find Scorpius and make him come with her to interview Ella…

"Hello? I _said_, I have it on good authority that Scorpius Malfoy was taking advantage of a Ravenclaw in a broom closet this morning, and almost got caught! By Filch of all people!"

Rose was quiet for a minute. _That _does not_ upset me. That _does not _surprise me. And yet… and yet…_ She sighed. "You said almost got caught?"

"Yeah."

"So how do you know it was him?" She told herself that she wanted to know for Scorpius's own good. He probably couldn't get in trouble over a rumor, but it was possible McGonagall or someone would try to do it anyway. Minerva McGonagall was a good Headmistress, and a fair woman, but she could not be said to be fond of any of the Slytherins, really. She was as kind to them as she was to anyone else, and it wasn't as though she blamed them for things they didn't do, but if she did find that a Slytherin had done something, perhaps she came down on them a bit harder than she had to. Certainly there was no chance of leniency from her. And Rose still remembered the way she had looked at Scorpius when they had first told her and Slughorn about Ella. It hadn't been condescending, exactly, but there had been just enough distaste in her gaze for Rose to register. Enough for Rose to feel uncomfortable and sorry for Scorpius.

"Several people saw him walk out with the girl." Said Lily, eyebrows raised. "You're telling me that's circumstantial evidence?"

Rose sighed, trying to breathe past the slight, uncomfortable tightness in her chest. "Well—what's so miraculous about that? Scorpius sai—he's with a different girl every week," she said. She felt that she ought not to disclose what Scorpius had told her in confidence, even though she trusted Lily.

"Well, to be honest, you seem to be spending more time with him than usual lately, so I thought it might interest you."

_Shit._ "Um, no, not really. I—I…" She sighed. Why _couldn't_ she just tell Lily? Her cousin was a terrible gossip, but she knew not to tell people about something like this. Rose wasn't sure how the student body would react, but she knew what her teachers would say—"Stay out of this. You children are too young." But if the school wasn't going to do anything about something like this—and she had given them a chance, it had been a few days since McGonagall's speech, and all she and Scorpius had done was a minor, unsuccessful stakeout—then she was. She couldn't let Ella's bully go free. Hell, that wasn't even bullying. That was a hate crime.

"You what?" Lily had that look on her face, the slight smug smile and the interested light in her light brown eyes that said, _Oh yes, _this_ is gonna be good_.

Rose sighed. Well, she was _not_ going to let Lily think she was—shudder—_dating_ Scorpius Malfoy in secret or something stupid like that. She had already made it clear to Scorpius that that was definitely not going to be their excuse for spending as much time together as they would need to. But did she really want to explain the whole debacle to Lily? She was going to find some way to involve Scorpius being sexy and Rose just being jealous and/or crazy because she didn't want him.

But she probably shouldn't keep something like this from her cousin. She—

"Rose? Rose, what's up?" The eager gossip-monger's expression was gone from Lily's face, replaced by a look of concern.

Rose rubbed her temples tiredly. She should tell Lily. "Er, well, the Scorpius thing—it's kind of hard to explain. You see, we were the ones who—found Ella Rhees. And then McGonagall gave her speech, and it was clear that the school wasn't going to bring the Ministry into it, and they really should—and we both knew that—and so… ." She blushed slightly. It sounded—well, it sounded kind of silly when she put it that way. Like two kids playing detective or something. And they were, in a way. She just hoped it would prove more fruitful than a child's game.

Lily stood there, staring at her cousin. Rose looked up at her expectantly and slightly petulantly. _What? Is there a problem with my wanting to help someone?_ Finally Lily shook her head and said, "Sometimes I think you're too smart for Gryffindor. And then you go and do things like this." The two girls examined each other for a moment. Then Lily suddenly dashed over and threw her arms around Rose. "_Please_ be careful. That's all. Just be careful."

Slightly startled, but touched, Rose hugged Lily back. "I will. Don't worry."

Lily stood up, taking a breath. "And the other reason I came by is that Scorpius wanted to see you."

Rose blinked. "Oh? I thought he was busy with some bimbo." She kept all but a slight undertone of bitterness out of her voice. Surprised and annoyed at herself, she bit the inside of her cheek. Why the _hell_ did she _care_?

Lily laughed. "You do realize the inherent contradiction in that? There's no such thing as a _Ravenclaw_ bimbo. Anyway, no, he's waiting for you at the Lake."

Rose laughed too. "All right. Are you going back there?"

"Yeah. I'll tell him you'll be along soon."

Rose smiled. "Thanks."

Lily smiled back and turned to leave, then turned back. "Oh, and you are _lucky_ to be spending a lot of time with _him_, whatever the circumstances."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Lily, if you continue with these lewd comments regarding your approximation of—"

"Sorry. Just felt it obligatory." Lily flashed another grin and left. Rose sighed, smiling as well. She really did love her family.

Rose quickly dressed, tapping her wand to her hair to tame the exuberant curls. She frowned at herself in the mirror, seeing that the charm barely did anything. She sighed and shook her head, and started for the Lake.

She was barely paying any attention as she walked, and almost bumped into Demetri.

"Oh, Rose! How _did_ you find Mr. Malfoy the other night?" he said, familiar shit-eating grin in place.

It took every modicum of Rose's self-control to keep from rolling her eyes. She composed her expression into her "polite" face and said, "Oh, he was fine. Did you hear about Ms. Rhees?" She knew she shouldn't have brought it up, especially in such a casual manner, but the newfound "detective" in her forced it from her lips.

Demetri looked first scared, then taken aback. "Didn't everyone?" he snapped. "Why do you ask?"

Rose raised an eyebrow. Inside, the gears of her mind were turning. _That was a… weird reaction. He seemed almost _offended_ that I mentioned it._ "Well, it was terrible. Just wondering what you thought." She leaned forward conspiratorially, giving Demetri a pretty good view of her chest, mostly covered thought it was—she wouldn't normally demean herself, but she knew that she and Scorpius needed a lead, and she was willing to resort to underhanded tactics to get it (besides the fact that it was kind of pathetic to see the way Demetri still drooled over her)—"Who you think did it," she added quietly, for clarification.

"Oh." He blinked stupidly, then shook himself and continued, "Oh. I mean, of course it was the Slytherins. Everyone knows that. I mean, c'mon, the girl was Muggleborn, and being an innocent little Hufflepuff, she would fall for whatever lure they used."

Several things about that sentence just rubbed Rose the wrong way, especially the part about "of course it was the Slytherins." She couldn't help snapping, "You know, what makes you think it was the Slytherins, anyway? They're not all bad."

Demetri snorted derisively. "Oh, a snake fancier, are you? Get a little too close to Malfoy last night? I hear he's got quite the reputation."

"Of course _you_ would jump to that conclusion. I can't believe that you dare to say you still care about me when you can't even remember that _my cousin is a Slytherin_." Rose growled back.

"Oh please. Everyone knows Albus doesn't count."

"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Rose snapped. "He absolutely _is_ a Slytherin, and there is nothing wrong with that!"

Demetri looked at her incredulously. "I can't believe you. Your own _parents_ were in the front lines in the war against the Dark Lord, and here you are, _defending_ Slytherin!"

"Yes! Yes, I am! _Voldemort_ was a sick child who grew into a sick man, and that had nothing to do with his House! And anyway, Slytherins make the least amount of trouble these days, which you'd know if you cared to pay any fucking attention to your duties!"

Demetri growled. "That's it!" He shoved her roughly, and she fell backward a few steps, shocked. "You are a loudmouthed little _slut_, Rose Weasley, and you can go—"

"Leave her alone, Ivers. Now."

Rose recognized that voice, all right. She just couldn't believe what it was saying.

Demetri looked up, snarling, "This isn't your business, Malfoy. Move right along."

Scorpius stared coolly back into Demetri's furious face. He leaned casually against a pillar, not fifteen feet away from them. His stare was disinterested, but Rose could see a slight tenseness in his muscles, like a coiled spring. "If you're shoving a girl around, it's anyone's business, Ivers. Perhaps you wouldn't be so eager if you had to pick on someone your own size."

"You hate her too!"

This got both Rose and Scorpius to flinch. Rose started, "That's a separate—"

"I don't hate her." Now Scorpius was moving in front of her. "Now leave, or you'll wish you had."

Demetri just stood there, shaking with rage. Finally he said coldly, "I can't risk my position as Head Boy to… deal with you two. But you'll regret this, Malfoy. And you'll get yours someday, Rose." He stormed away.

The two left standing there were silent for a moment, not facing each other. Then Rose said, "You didn't have to do that."

Scorpius shrugged slightly. "No. I'm sure you could've handled it fine. But I'm not sure you could've done it without hexing him. And you'd have a pretty good case—he provoked you. But it'd still be a smudge on your record that could be avoided. And under all that swagger, Ivers is yellow as piss."

Rose wrinkled her nose. "No need to be crude."

Scorpius chuckled. "It's the truth. Only reason he didn't run screaming when I stepped in was because I hadn't pulled a wand on him yet."

"So I'm not frightening because I'm a girl."

"Sure you're frightening when you want to be." On the slim crescent of his face that was visible to Rose, she saw a cheeky smirk. "But to him? Yes, that's exactly it. Even though you could probably hex his nose off before he even got a boil on you. I know from experience."

Rose grinned too.

They were still not facing each other, and it had gone silent. Finally Rose said tentatively, "Did—did you mean what you said before? About not hating me?"

"Of course I did. I haven't _hated_ you for a long time. I just—" Scorpius stopped. "I know what I want to say. I don't think I'm going to say it right now, though."

Rose shifted, then started, "Scorpius—"

He turned to face her, smiling slightly. "It's not a big deal. I'm melodramatic by nature. Albus says never mind that I'm suspiciously good at Potions, I should go into the theater."

Rose was startled into laughing. "Does he really say that? It sounds like something he'd say."

Scorpius's eyes shone. "Yeah. Yeah, he says that." He sighed. "Anyway, I was looking for you. We've got business to conduct."

"Yes, the Ella Rhees thing. Do you know—"

Scorpius held up a pale, elegant finger. "Madam Pomfrey says we can talk to her for ten minutes provided we're sensitive to her condition and all that mushy Gryffindor stuff."

"Ten minutes! That's not enough time for all my questions—"

Scorpius just started walking, dragging her along by the elbow. "You'll learn to prioritize."

"Fuck you! Let me go!"

"You coming on your own, then? As opposed to staying here and not making use of what little time we've got?"

"Yes, of course!" Rose twisted out of his grasp, brushing invisible dust particles off her clothes. Then she remembered that she had a question for Scorpius himself. "Lily says you were almost caught with a girl this morning."

Scorpius kept his face neutral for a few moments as if deciding how to react. Then he said carefully, "She tell you who it was?"

Rose raised an eyebrow. "No. Is that significant?"

Scorpius coughed. "It's kind of a funny story… only I think you might hit me if I told you it…"

Rose snorted. "If it's that bad, I'll just repeat it to Lily."

Scorpius laughed. "I'll take that. It was Eva Laurence."

"Of Ravenclaw? The one who everyone thinks is a prude because she's pretty and won't date?"

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "I take it you disagree with the ideology behind the statement."

Rose scoffed. "Maybe she actually wants to focus on her studies. So few people do around here."

Scorpius raised his hands in a gesture of peace. "Well, what happened was, she came up to me after class—we're in Herbology together…"

They talked the whole way to the Hospital Wing. Rose enjoyed herself the whole way to the Hospital Wing. She refused to admit that the two facts had any connection.

#

When they got in there, it was worse than Rose had imagined. It wasn't as though there was any blood on the sheets, or bodily fluids of any other sort; they were a sterile, obsessively clean white, and there were no traces of any other color to suggest that they had at any other time been otherwise. She had no tubes up her nose or in her arms as there so often were in the Muggle dramas that she sometimes saw Lily watching on the Potter family's little-used television. There were no dark circles under Ella's hazel eyes, which Rose noted were only slightly clouded when the girl looked up to give them a weak smile.

No, it wasn't what was _there_ that was disturbing. It was what wasn't there, or reminders of what had taken place. The bandages around Ella's wrists were thick and the lower layers were no doubt saturated with blood. There was an aura of pain that surrounded the girl, engulfing Rose and no doubt Scorpius as well as they moved closer to the bed. Her back was hunched with the effort of focusing on anything but the hurt, and Rose was aware that the clouds in Ella's eyes probably meant that she was being given something to help her forget. Her wavy brown hair was clean, but her skin was too pale, and she looked thin. Violet bruises had surfaced, highlighted in the harsh light of the Hospital Wing.

Rose sat down in a chair next to the bed. How the hell was she going to begin? She—

But Scorpius was already speaking, his voice smooth and quiet and comforting, saying, "…Miss Weasley and I are prefects, as I'm sure you know, and we want to help you, Miss Rhees. But in order for us to help you, you need to help us, okay? We're going to ask you a few questions about the night you were injured. Is that all right?"

And though Rose had seen fear in Ella's eyes, no doubt because of Scorpius's pureblood status, now she was nodding.

"No one here is going to hurt you, okay? Miss Weasley and I are going to find out who did this to you. And if you can't remember something or it's difficult for you to talk about it, just tell us, okay?"

More nodding. Then she spoke. "I'm sorry, can I just—?" Her voice was rasping, like it had to fight to get out of her throat.

"Of course." And there was such sincere sympathy in his voice that Rose's heart just melted. "Take as long as you need."

She looked at him, astonished. She knew how close he and Albus were, but she just couldn't imagine him being—well, comforting. His face looked completely open, eyes never leaving Ella's face as she struggled to keep composure and ready herself for the interview.

And then he was looking at Rose, eyebrow risen. "What?" he mouthed.

She shook her head, waving a hand dismissively.

"I'm ready."

Scorpius nodded, that sweet understanding look back in place. "You can stop if your throat starts to hurt."

Ella nodded, smiling gratefully. Scorpius turned to Rose and asked, "Did you have questions ready?"

"Yes, er—can you just tell me what exactly happened?"

Ella nodded, sighing deeply. She was quiet for a moment before beginning in a low voice that Rose had to bend closer to hear. "I was walking back to my dorm—I take a medicine every now and then, it's for my asthma, it makes it so I don't need an inhaler—anyway I was walking back to my dorm and they attacked me. They were wearing black and these funny masks that looked like they were made of silver paper. I think they were wearing hard-toed shoes. They beat me around a little bit, before, before…" Her eyes filled, her hands crossed over her chest and her hands gripped her forearms so tightly that her knuckles went white.

Scorpius walked over quickly and sat beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "It's all right, it's fine, you're safe now," he murmured, patting her soothingly. "Were you conscious, when they…?"

Ella shook her head. "They knocked me out first. I don't know with what." She sniffed hard, gripping at Scorpius's shirt.

"And you came to later in the hospital wing."

"Yes." She was shaking, and Rose almost had second thoughts. But she steeled herself, remembering that it was for Ella's sake that she was doing this, and pressed on.

Madam Pomfrey ended up giving them fifteen minutes, during which Ella tried bravely not to cry, Scorpius soothed her as best he could, and Rose mostly asked questions, all the while feeling extremely intrusive and ill at ease. She wrote down what Ella said in a pad Transfigured from a cup and a pen Transfigured from a piece of bandaging (Scorpius had raised an eyebrow and said, "What are you doing evenings a week before our next Transfiguration test?").

As to what they'd learned, the information was in equal parts horrific and confusing. It sounded like these kids were trying to emulate the Death Eaters in every way possible, but—why? Why relive the terror of the Wizarding Wars? And if they got caught, the consequences would be astronomical—as they should be. And over the stupidest beliefs… as if anyone really thought that purebloods were better wizards anymore.

"Been thinking," said Scorpius beside her as they walked down the hall.

Rose smiled grimly. "Haven't we both been to the best of our abilities for the better part of an hour?" They had decided without words to just walk, cooling off after the interview.

"Perhaps. I've come upon something I think might be of note, though." He ran a hand through his pale hair. "What's your experience been with human religion, Rose?"

Rose shrugged. "Not much. Granddad and Grandma are Christian, but they're not all that religious."

"And your father's parents?"

Rose frowned. "You know wizards don't have much in the way of religion. I'm surprised you know anything about it, what with your parents…"

"Okay. And if these—_people_—" he spat, "are pureblood, or trying to be pureblood, why did they nail Ella up the way they did? Isn't it kind of reminiscent of Christ on the cross?"

Rose felt a bit ill. This was already confusing, and now Scorpius had added another dimension to the whole mess. "I don't buy it. Not yet. Wouldn't they have just put her on an actual cross?" Her frown deepened. "And what would that signify? I mean, wouldn't it make her look like a martyr? Isn't that a good thing, in theory?"

Scorpius shrugged. "I guess. It could have no other significance than the fact that we're obviously dealing with sick, violent bastards who like causing as much pain as possible." He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. "Just guessing."

Rose sighed exasperatedly. "Well, we talked to our prime witness, and still we know barely more than we did yesterday." She rested her hand on the wall, staring out at the grounds from the wide window she stood in front of. She felt Scorpius come up behind her and tentatively place his hands on her shoulders. She didn't bother shaking him off.

They stood like that in silence for a while. Then Scorpius said, "We can get by on barely-mores. It's still early in the game. There's no need to be planning strategy for the last half just yet."

More standing around in quiet, and Rose wondered if maybe Scorpius touching her in little ways, just the brief brushes of skin against skin that showed he cared for Albus or (more rarely) for Bella Zabini, wasn't so bad after all.


	7. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

It was one of those nights where Scorpius wondered whether it was nice in Hell, since that was quite obviously where he was headed when he died. Perhaps he was there now. That could be the only explanation for why he couldn't get Rose fucking Weasley out of his head.

They hadn't had a chance to talk for an entire week. They ended up not going on a second stakeout due to homework complications, and hadn't had a chance to do more than nod at each other in the halls since then. Scorpius had asked around, found out a few pieces of interesting information, but he had no clue what to do with it and was it really so bad that perhaps he actually liked seeing his best friend's cousin, sometimes?

Yes. Yes, because his father could put up with his going to the Potters' place over the summer and for a few intermittent Christmases, but he wasn't going to put up with his son being _in love_ with a _Weasley_.

…In love?

"Shit." He uttered aloud. This wasn't even possible in the first place. How could he possibly be—feeling this way, he wasn't in love, he couldn't be, that was _ridiculous_, he didn't even _believe_ in love—anyway, having these emotions about someone he'd previously only taken joy in ridiculing?

Was that true? Had he really just enjoyed teasing her? To be sure, pissing her off was absolutely among his favorite pastimes. Well… he'd always admired her intelligence. Despite the fact that he rarely dated any girls who possessed it, he liked intelligence in a woman. Sometimes.

…he liked it in Rose Weasley. He liked that, and her temper, and her bloody-mindedness, and the way her brow furrowed when she was thinking about something really hard…

_Shut up, brain_, he told himself. He raked an anxious hand through his hair. "You're not serious," he said aloud, to God or Merlin or the cosmos or life in general, he didn't know. "You can't fucking be serious."

Even a tiny crush on Rose Weasley wasn't permissible. For one thing, it was just bloody ridiculous in general, even if in some very private, very secluded, very ignored and repressed part of his mind he thought it might not be, _might_ not be. For another, his father would have kittens. And calves. And several other baby animals. For a third thing, she would never return his—fancy. There we go. That's a good word, fancy, thought Scorpius. It sounded flighty and impermanent. Like this would all go away in a week's time.

But… but there was the issue of the Ravenclaw, Eva Laurence. She'd let him get away with rather a lot in that broom closet. He hadn't had sex with her, but he'd come pretty cl—for discretion purposes, he'd say he had thoroughly debauched the girl. He snorted. _Prude, my arse._ In any case, even that had failed to get rid of thoughts of crazy Gryffindors of little faith.

Oh, and another thing: Rose was Albus's cousin. He would feel trapped if he got together with her (the likelihood was about the same as Rose not studying for a test or not turning in a piece of homework, but even so) and became disenchanted. He wouldn't want to hurt Albus.

He could go on and on about their different values and life philosophies, all those nutty things that girls' magazines (that Rose didn't read, a trait he admired in a woman—god _damn_ it) went on and on about and what it really meant was "if you have vastly differing views, you're setting yourself up for misery if you date/get married/become romantically involved in any way." Rose had morals; Scorpius… did, in theory, but at least half the time not in practice. At least he knew what his morals probably ought to be. Rose studied and cared about school; Scorpius cared about the subjects he liked, and knew he could do better in those he didn't, but wouldn't bother. Rose liked to read. Scorpius pretended he didn't. Rose—was not as innocent as she seemed, he noticed. There was something fishy about this whole Demetri business. For one thing, she had seemed to care not a whit about his feelings. He had seemed angry, and Scorpius knew that in this instance, angry meant hurt. So wouldn't Rose have seen that? Tried to let him down gently a bit? Maybe he had just tried her patience too often. But even so, something felt off. Scorpius suspected that she hadn't cared for Demetri at all, and was dating him for… some other reason to be determined at a later date.

But anyway. Rose's innocence or lack thereof had nothing to do with the matter. The point was that they were utterly incompatible, and there were various other reasons regarding their parents and Albus that Scorpius should ignore these feelings with all his mulish might and know that they would go away, because hoping or praying implied a lack of confidence. No, Scorpius _knew_ these feelings weren't real, that they must be transitory. It was just the way it was. It had to be, or Armageddon had to be just around the corner.

So she was officially off-limits, and there was really no reason his heart should sink into his stomach at that thought.

He rubbed his temples. _What am I going to do with my miserable, pathetic, playboy self?_

He looked out the window. It was obscenely sunny, and the sky was a deep, flawless blue. He figured he'd go flying. That always helped him work out his thoughts.

He sighed and threw his legs over the side of the bed. He got dressed and strolled out of his dorm. The bright morning breathed cool, crisp fall air into the halls and he took it in, filling his lungs and then reluctantly relinquishing the fresh oxygen. He started to walk a little faster, excited. He'd had a few Quidditch practices, but it had been a while since he'd just flown because he wanted to.

The hall wasn't busy. Scorpius liked it that way. It made him forget that he was a Slytherin in a Gryffindor world, and that his father was Draco Malfoy, one of the most hated wizards currently living, and that he might be developing untoward sentiments regarding Rose Weasley. There was just the quiet, and the sun shining, and the dust motes spinning in the light, and—

And running footsteps. Scorpius looked up and Rose Weasley nearly crashed into him, his arms around her thinner ones the only thing keeping them both from being catapulted onto the stone floor.

Rose's head jerked up and she broke into a grin. "Ah, Malfoy. Just the prat I wanted to see. I swear, I've been trying to talk to you all week! Where the hell have you been?"

The gears of Scorpius's brain were working overtime in order to keep up with Rose. "Er, school? You have news on the Ella thing? I do too." He paused briefly. "What are you doing down here? This is the Dungeons."

Rose rolled her eyes. "What else is new? And don't call it the Ella thing, it sounds—lacking in respect. And if you were at school you were in the deepest, darkest corners. I looked for you everywhere at the end of each day. Just now I was looking for Albus, actually. Is he in your dorm?"

"No, he's a bloody early riser, the git. It's elevenish, so he hasn't been in the dorm since a good four hours ago at the latest."

"I know he's an early riser. I thought he might've come back—anyway. It's not as important as this. Room of Requirement or the library?"

"Library. It's closer."

"Right. Come on then, you slowpoke." A lightning flash of a grin, and then she was ten feet away, Scorpius trying to keep up with the delicate girl torpedoing down the hall at an inordinate speed.

"Goddammit, Rose, you're not _tall_ enough to be so fast!" he huffed.

She laughed, throwing back her head. Scorpius remembered to breathe. "What happened to the Quidditch star?"

"Quidditch doesn't require a lot of running around after fire-haired crazies."

She turned to raise an eyebrow at him. "Fire-haired?"

"Shut up. I'm a Malfoy. Comes with the fucking name, okay?"

Rose's eyes were towards the floor. She seemed pensive. "Seems a lot of things do." Then she turned and continued barreling down the hall, jerking sharply left. Scorpius sighed and followed her.

"Why are you in such a hurry?"

"I've got the energy. And the sooner we discuss this, the better."

Scorpius shook his head. "Insane." He let a bit of the fond slant to the word slip through—as much as he dared.

Finally they reached the double-doors made of dark wood that lead into the grand library of Hogwarts. Madam Pince raised her eyebrows at the odd couple, which Scorpius dutifully ignored. Rose actually waved at the woman.

"Are you fucking—no, I won't even ask," said Scorpius when they were out of earshot.

"What did I do?" Rose asked confusedly.

"You _waved_ to _Madam Pince_!"

Rose shrugged. "She's a nice lady. I'm here a lot."

"Of course you're here a lot. You're Rose Weasley. But waving to Madam Pince—" he shuddered. "That's not natural."

Rose shifted uneasily. "She—doesn't—that is, she might not like you because—" she bit the inside of her cheek.

Scorpius took a deep breath. "You can say it, Rose. Slytherin. Sly. Ther. In. It's not so hard." He paused. "A lot of people don't like me because I'm Slytherin. And a Malfoy, to boot. But they're the same no-good thing anyway." His eyes wouldn't move from the carpeted floor. There was a bit of a silence before Rose blurted out—

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"Don't apologize. It's a fact of life. I wasn't mad at you."

"For once." But it was light, and she chuckled, and he chuckled, and the quiet became more companionable. They reached a table towards the back and sat, she resting her face on her folded hands agitatedly, he leaning back in his chair with his feet on the table. She pulled a face and shoved his feet away, but he just smiled and moved them so they weren't in her face. "So, who goes first?"

He shrugged. "I've not got much. Just a few interesting tidbits. You?"

"The same." She sighed. "Plus a few ideas of who we should talk to that I had forgotten."

"I'll start." Scorpius took a breath. "So the first bit I've got is that somebody found a quill dipped in green ink near where Ella was. I convinced them to give it over, so if we can just make sure no one relates it to the case—oh god, I sound like you now—we've got a lead."

Rose frowned. "Someone could have stolen it."

"So then we know when it was taken, possibly, and who could have done it."

Rose made a "point conceded" gesture.

"Anyway, that. The other thing I learned was that your boyfriend—"

"I don't have one."

_Don't tell me that, don't tell me that, I don't care, don't tell me that…_ "Right. Your ex. Anyway, some Ravenclaws—" Rose raised an eyebrow—"Okay, fine. _Eva_ told me that Ivers was only there for part of the Ravenclaw planning session."

Rose frowned, thinking. Then she relaxed and sighed. "No, he wasn't. He was there the whole time."

Scorpius frowned too. "Was he? How do you know?"

Rose was shaking her head. "I don't know. But I'm going to ignore it completely."

Scorpius was incredulous. "Why? What if he is involved?"

"It would be too fucking easy to blame him, damn it!" She hit the table hard with the flat of her hand. "Oh, I know I—I didn't treat him as well as I could have, but that's not the issue. But anyway, he was an ass too, and it would be so, so easy to point at him and say, 'He did it! He's my ex! I know he's evil!' But I'm not going to do that. I'm solving this by blood, sweat and tears and that's final." Her eyes burned holes in the table.

"You're being irrational," he said quietly, gently, "We should take all the leads we can get." He frowned. "Are you still carrying a torch for him or something?" _Did I misread you entirely?_

She snarled. "Did it look like I was still carrying a torch for him back in the hall? Of course not. He's an asshole."

Scorpius put up his hands in a placating gesture, trying to comprehend. "I'm sorry, I just don't get what the big deal is. The fact that you dated him doesn't mean he couldn't have done this!"

"That's as it should be," she snapped. "And I don't want to investigate him further until we have more proof, all right?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes, exasperated. _Good, good. This is why you ha—dislike Rose Weasley._ "How are we going to get more proof if we don't dig deeper? I intend on investigating everyone who might have been involved in this! I _thought _that's what you intended too—"

"Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, if you continue speaking, you won't live to see tomorrow." She sighed. "I—please. I'm not putting this well. What I mean is that it would be too easy to blame him because we both dislike him, and I feel like we would work more effectively if we did everyone else first." She looked down. "I also want to be in as little contact with the prat as possible."

Scorpius nodded, sighing. "Why didn't you just say that at first?"

Rose shook her head. "I'm a bit—disoriented. Anyway, is that all you've got for me?"

"Yeah." Scorpius ran a hand through his hair, thinking. "I'm sorry," he said uncertainly, "I don't want to pry, but—what the fuck is up with you and Yellow Boy?"

"Yellow Boy?"

Scorpius grinned. "That's Albus's and my nickname for Ivers."

She laughed, but the merriment soon faded from her face, replaced by clear discomfiture. "Can—can we not talk about this now? I'd just rather get on with my news. My feelings about Demetri are—conflicted, in some ways, and rather straightforward in others, and altogether too difficult to explain in brief."

Scorpius nodded slowly. "Okay. What did you find out?"

Rose's findings were in greater detail and number than his. Number one, she had mentioned the Ella Rhees thing ("We need a better name for it, but _privately_, and until further notice," had been her response to Scorpius's smug grin) to Demetri before they had fought and Scorpius had intervened, and his reaction had been a bit strange—he'd been scared and then had seemed almost offended, then said it was obviously the Slytherins who had done it. Scorpius thought about commenting on this, and about how he'd been right, but took one look at her face and thought better of it.

Next she had gone and gossiped extensively with Lily Luna, which failed to yield just about anything that didn't involve Scorpius (who snickered until he received a swift kick under the table that shut him up for the time being). Rose was not spared by the rumor mill either. She spent about ten minutes convincing a highly amused Scorpius that no, they should _not_ tell people they were having regular threesomes with Eva Laurence, nor that the case was all a cover-up for these threesomes.

"But think what it would do for my rep!"

"Shut your pointy face and let me finish." She paused. "And forget about the threesomes, even in the realm of the imagination."

"Dammit! But it would have been _such_ a brilliant wank fantasy!"

She shoved him. "Sod off!"

Finally three days ago (Thursday) she had collapsed on her bed in exhaustion and happened to glance over at her bedside, where she found a list of people to interview for the case that she'd made during the first three or four days they had been working on it.

"Who's on it?" Scorpius asked curiously, leaning across the table and tilting his body slightly to get a better look at the crumpled paper now resting between them.

"Ella, Evan, Zabini," Rose rattled off in a clinical tone.

"So are we actually going to talk to them?"

Rose frowned. "Of course. They're the best lead we've got, pretty much."

Scorpius leaned back, rubbing his temples. He really, really didn't want to talk to Bella Zabini. He'd been actively avoiding her for the past few weeks, since—well, since the Ella thing. Quite frankly he'd gotten sick of her ineffectual flirts and her flattery. Why couldn't she accept that she was different, that she meant enough to Scorpius that he didn't want to sleep with her, like he would with any other empty tramp? Although she wasn't really a tramp, she could sometimes act well below her age and station. Not that he much cared for station.

And it wasn't like she was going to tell them anything useful. Had she seen anything, she probably would have said something to someone, unless she was involved, which was highly unlikely. And if she hadn't, she'd just throw herself at Scorpius.

Finnigan—well, whatever. He was obviously a useless puppet.

Rose's voice interrupted his train of thought. "Scorpius? Opinions?"

"I don't want to talk to Bella."

Rose shrugged. "Fine. I'll do it."

Scorpius looked at her with patent disbelief. "You really think _you're_ going to get anything worthwhile out of her? She won't even give _you _the time of day. In any case, she won't have anything to say. If she'd seen something, she would've said something, and the news would have reached me by now."

Rose pulled a face. "Maybe. But we should check anyway. What's the harm?"

"The _harm_ is that she's going to spend the entire time trying and failing to seduce me."

It was Rose's turn to give him a skeptical look. "You keep yammering on and on about how she's trying to sleep with you and you hate it, but I've seen no evidence of this. You're also being rather unsympathetic, though I can see where you're coming from on your side of the story. If you really hate it so much, tell her to stop."

"I have," he bit out, getting annoyed, "and you don't know what it's _like_. I mean, _every_ single fucking _day_ she makes up some excuse to 'escort me to my next class' or go to Hogsmeade together or something. She's a nice girl, but she's so clingy!" 

"And she likes you." Rose flipped her hair out of her eyes, which were currently on low heat, but which could easily smolder their way to volcanic if properly provoked.

"She thinks she likes me. I've told her time and again to forget about me, but she won't even try."

Rose shrugged. "She likes you a lot, and she's beautiful. Do you know how many guys must envy you? _Just_ because she likes you?"

Scorpius gritted his teeth, reading between the lines. "What exactly are you implying? That I give her a try and break her heart?"

Rose shook her head, playing with one of her auburn curls. "I just don't see how you're so sure you'll grow tired of her so easily."

"Look, you hate her too!"

Rose shrugged. "I'm just saying. I feel kind of bad for her."

"Don't." He said it sharply, too sharply, going from Rose's face, which looked shocked and not a little—disgusted? Horrified? Something like that. Scorpius ignored it. _She can't know, she's prying into what's not her business…_

There was silence. Finally Rose said, "You really hate her, don't you?"

"I don't hate her."

"Look, I'm sorry. That was an invasion of your privacy, and I guess I can't really know, but—"

"Just drop it before you negate your apology, Weasley." He wouldn't look at her, couldn't. Bella… that was just a line most people never bothered to try and cross with him, not even some of his closest friends. Only Albus really knew the long and short of it. He was not planning on letting his cousin in on it as well, though.

She cleared her throat. "But… I think talking to her and to Finnigan could be really helpful. Even if they didn't see the culprits, maybe they noticed someone walking down the halls—"

"While snogging in a closet?"

But Rose bravely forged on, "Saw someone walking down the halls, or maybe heard some shuffling. I don't know. It's a wisp of a chance, but you said we could get by on barely-mores. We won't even have those if we don't make use of everything we've got."

He stared at her face for a while, the eyes now on full passionate volcanic heat, her freckles like rock expelled from the summit, her hair like lava running down the mountain's sides.

And then she softened, her eyes melting into—well, the obvious comparison would be warm chocolate, her milky skin an admirable complement. The red hair became more honey than lava, and her facial features spoke of sad passivity and helplessness that he knew she didn't actually possess. "For Ella," she murmured.

Scorpius banged his fist against the table, much like she had done when they had discussed Demetri. "Fuck! Fine! We'll talk to Bella. I'll even come with you, damn it." He sighed shakily. "I don't know. It'll probably be fine."

Rose smiled glowingly. "Thank you, Scorpius. Who knows? Maybe we'll learn something really important." She reached across the table, putting her hand over his. He let her, even though he was still royally pissed, because he was a Slytherin, and Slytherins are nothing if not opportunists.

#

There was some back and forth about when and how, but it was solved much quicker than Scorpius might've hoped. At half past seven, they stood in front of Bella's dorm, Scorpius agitated and still angry that he'd been duped into this by a _Gryffindor_, Rose excited and chattering at him about the questions she'd formulated.

"Okay, okay, that's great—but can I please do the talking?" Scorpius said distractedly. "Like I said, she won't respond well to your asking her."

Rose shrugged. "Sure. Take the sheet as your guide." She handed him the parchment she'd written the questions on. There were only three.

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Are you going steady with Evan Finnigan?"

She shrugged again. "Well, it's a valid question. And I haven't told him to break up with her, by the way. She might mean well by him."

Scorpius snorted. "And the moon might be made of cheese," he murmured as the door opened. Rose pulled a face at him.

Inwardly, Scorpius groaned. Bella was wearing a blindingly shiny lip-gloss and green eyeshadow that highlighted her eyes. She had changed out of her uniform and into a flattering green sleeveless dress with a sparkly butterfly on her left breast and smaller ones along the hem, which was very short. Her smile was seductive and she was completely ignoring Rose, boring holes into Scorpius. He cleared his throat. "So._ Miss Weasley and I_ wanted to ask you a few questions."

"Of course. Come in." She stepped aside, and Scorpius saw that the dress had no back. He refrained from rolling his eyes and did, practically shoving Rose inside before him. _Shit. This was a terrible idea. Why the fuck does she always have to throw herself at me?_

"Sit down," said Bella, indicating her bed. She still wasn't looking at Rose.

"Uh, Bella, this isn't exactly a social occasion. We need to ask our questions and be done with it," said Scorpius, taking as much of the edge off of his voice as he could.

Bella giggled. "Of course, Scorpius. Prefect business, I understand. I always liked a man in uniform."

_Oh shit. Shut up, you stupid bint. I'm not in any uniform but the school one. Stop making an ass of yourself._ He stole a glance at Rose, who was shaking with pent-up laughter. "Er, why don't you start with the questions, Scorpius?" she forced out, eyes alight with merriment.

He glared at her, annoyed that she was taking pleasure in his pain, but said, "Bella, did you notice anything strange last night? Hear anything, see anything?"

"Well, I'm not too observant when I've got someone's tongue down my throat," she said in a boastful tone, grinning salaciously.

Scorpius gritted his teeth, not looking at her. _Damn it, just let this be done with._ "Please just answer the question."

"Let me think." She bit her lip in a way she obviously thought was attractive. Scorpius ignored her, and grew a bit more irritated. "Well, I know I saw Annabeth Winston when I was taking a walk with Evan. We were by the Ravenclaw dorms."

He and Rose shared a look. They had found Ella by the Ravenclaw dorms and Scorpius had heard Annabeth around there as well. It was just too coincidental. Finally Rose said faintly, "That can't be right."

Bella raised an eyebrow. "It is. We talked to her a bit."

Rose and Scorpius spoke at the same time:

"What did she say?"

"What time was it?"

"It was around nine, just before curfew. Evan waved and introduced us. We exchanged pleasantries and moved on."

"Which way did she go?"

"Towards the Ravenclaw dorm. Isn't she a Ravenclaw?"

"Hufflepuff," Rose corrected absently. Scorpius frowned and asked, "And when you were going back to your dorm? Did you see anything then?"

Bella shook her head.

There was quiet for a moment while both prefects thought. Then Rose asked, "Was Evan friendly with her, do you know? Were they close at all?"

Bella shrugged, resting her attention on Rose for as long as it took for the girl to ask her question before returning it to Scorpius and replying, "They seemed friendly enough. They were close enough for him to introduce me to her."

Scorpius privately thought that Finnigan might just be showing off, but refrained from saying so. "Did she seem to be acting strange to you in any way?"

Bella shook her head, frowning slightly. "Is she a suspect? She seemed perfectly docile. And Hufflepuffs don't do things like what happened to Miss Rhees."

"They don't go to another dorm right before curfew either." Scorpius said flatly. "And are you sure you heard nothing out of the ordinary while you were—with Mr. Finnigan?"

"I didn't hear much at all except his fevered whispers."

Rose let out a giggle loosely concealed by a cough. Scorpius said stiffly, "That's a bit more than we needed to know, Bella."

"Sorry. It's just that we're so much in love—"

"Thank you for your time," he cut her off and grabbed Rose's wrist. "Before we go, is there anything _related to the incident_ that you'd like us to know?"

Bella frowned. "I also saw Dana Carrow sneaking around on my way back."

"Thank you," said Scorpius again, "Your information has helped us greatly." He practically dragged Rose out the door after him and speeded down the hall until they turned a corner. He sighed, letting go of her wrist, and leaned against the wall.

"Scorpius, I know you think she's—"

"Please don't. I'm tired, and we've both got a lot to process." He paused. "Can we meet at the library tomorrow to discuss this? I want to sleep on it and mull it over a bit, see what I come up with on my own."

Rose raised her eyebrows a bit. "Fine. Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"I'm fine. Spending time with Bella is… draining."

She sighed. "Whatever you say. Good night, and see you tomorrow."

"Good night." He watched her walk away, irritation slowly dissipating. He stared after her for a bit, then shook himself and lurched off to his own dorm.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

Rose took her time getting back to her dorm, thinking worrying thoughts. The one at the forefront of her mind was, _How could I have hated this guy?_ They were very different, yes, but they were also very alike in ways she hadn't cared to notice before. The most striking parallel was obviously Demetri and Bella. But she shoved that hurriedly out of her head. _It's not like that, he doesn't know, what I did wasn't right, but that doesn't mean it was entirely wrong either, he needed to be taken down a peg…_

It was always a slippery slope that way, she thought. She still wasn't sure whether she wanted to tell Scorpius the full story or whether she wanted to scream at him to stay out of her business. To be fair, he had let her dig deeper into the Bella stuff than she had let him dig into her and Demetri, but she was also just getting used to not thinking of Scorpius as the enemy. It might help her get the whole thing off her chest, but she had confided in Albus, and she was pretty sure that for now, that should be enough. Someday when she felt ready, perhaps she'd offer him a trade. Bella for Demetri.

She shook her head. Scorpius Malfoy never failed to leave her out of sorts with each conversation, especially these days. It was frustrating, but she found that she didn't really mind it as much as she expected to.

That was worrying. That was _really_ worrying.

She looked up when she heard voices, relaxed when she saw Albus and James grinning at her. "Ah, dear Rosie. Always the pensive one," Albus said with a smile. "So where have you been?"

"With your roommate." Rose didn't miss James's slight frown.

"Scorpius? And what have you been up to? This crazy case of yours?" Albus asked, teasing in his tone.

"It's not crazy."

James snorted. "Nah. You're crazy if you think you're going to get anything out of investigating it."

"Oh, have faith. Scorp's not as dumb as he looks."

"Only sometimes," Rose countered with a slight grin. "You're certainly in high spirits."

"Always, when there's pumpkin pie for dessert. And of course there's the Slytherin versus Gryffindor game tomorrow."

"We'll beat the shit out of you," James said flatly, but his grin took the edge off of his words.

"I don't know about that," Albus countered, "We've got a top-flight team this year."

"Top-flight team? That's not worth shit. Red beats green, always."

Albus raised an eyebrow. "That's what you think."

Rose cleared her throat, deciding it was best to escape while she could. "Goodnight, guys."

"Night, Rosie," her cousins chorused, then went back to arguing as she walked away.

Once she got back to her room, Rose felt ill at ease. She tried to read and do some homework that wasn't due for a while, but she felt restless. Her mind had moved to plaguing her about the Ella thing.

_Why weren't there more attacks? What was the point of attacking just Ella Rhees, who never hurt anyone? Maybe Scorpius and I were jumping to conclusions when we saw the Dark Mark, but it's very coincidental, isn't it? Insecure Muggleborn witch, Dark Mark. That's not something someone does for a bit of a laugh._

Rose ran her hands through her hair, looked at the clock. Ten-thirty. She'd been driving herself to distraction for a little over two hours. She sighed, stood, stretched. She looked over at her roommates, who had come in an hour or so ago and hadn't bothered to disturb her, and who were also soundly asleep. She smiled. _I think I'll go for a walk._

Much as her family and Scorpius liked to tease her about her conscientious observance of most of Hogwarts' rules and regulations, even ones that other students ignored or even publicly flouted, it wasn't really that she always obeyed them so much as that she didn't get caught on the irregular occasions that she disobeyed them. The rule she most frequently disobeyed was curfew, despite her prefect status.

Rose had always been a fitful sleeper, and when she couldn't sleep she liked to walk. She never left the house when she was at home, but oftentimes she would walk through the garden, maybe bring a book and sit out in the night air. Her first year was unbearable. Finally near the end of it she borrowed the Invisibility Cloak from Albus, who held it for safekeeping, and felt a whole lot happier. During Fourth Year she started going out without the Cloak, having learned more intimately the many secret passageways of Hogwarts, and of course how not to make noise. When she had been made prefect in Fifth Year she stopped again for a little while, feeling guilty about her near-nightly breaches. Then, of course, she almost didn't get top marks on one of her OWLs, and started up again.

She opened the door quietly, softly in that practiced way she had, and looked both ways. Then, wand up, she crept out of her room and down the stairs. Finally, she bypassed the Fat Lady, who was by this point so familiar with Rose's nightly jaunts that she barely shifted.

Rose peered through the gloom halfheartedly. If there was someone there, it was probably a housemate, who wouldn't turn her in out of loyalty, or a Slytherin, whom she could probably hex and not feel bad abou—

And then she remembered Scorpius earlier today. The Madam Pince incident. And she remembered how sometimes Albus would come sit with her at lunch, and people would actually glare at him, despite the fact that his father was the Savior of the wizarding world. She stopped herself from banging on the wall, but only just. _Goddammit, just how bad has your life gotten if you're a Gryffindor who can't hex Slytherins?_

She started to walk, softly but furiously, at the speed Scorpius had complained about. She looked about the familiar scene, comforted. Hogwarts in the day was her school, flooded with other students and teachers and problems. But Hogwarts in the night was silent, tranquil—hers. She chose to conveniently forget that Ella had been attacked during the night.

Rose breathed the night air and got progressively calmer as she walked the shifting stairs and twisting corridors. _That's it, don't think. Give yourself some time off._ She followed her feet, and eventually, obviously, came to the corridor where this had all started, where she and Scorpius had found Ella. She ran her fingers along the now-bare wall. Her blood was gone, thank Merlin, and so was the Dark Mark. Ella's form hung spectrally before her eyes, just on the cusp of seeing, but Rose turned away, forcing herself to count each stone on the floor beneath her feet.

And then she felt a hand snake around her waist. And then she tried to scream.

There was a chuckle in her ear. "You freak out so easily, Rose."

Her eyes went wide and she turned in the very familiar intruder's grasp. "Scorpius?" she hissed incredulously. Of course she couldn't see him; he had probably taken the Cloak from Al. But she was too incensed to care which part of him she was enthusiastically attempting to bash in.

And of course, the git was laughing. "Shh, shh, calm down, we'll get caught," he said with the few breaths he could snatch in between bouts of hysteria. She continued hissing curses and variegated epithets at him, not noticing his arm still around her waist. "I don't give a shit about getting caught, you asshole! You scared the shit out of me—"

"That was rather the intention."

"It shouldn't have been! You're one to talk. 'You'll get us caught.' Have you any idea how wrong that could have gone—"

"Shh, shh. Seriously."

"And then you did the hand over my mouth thing again! What are you, some kind of rapist? Just because half the female population of Hogwarts has had an extremely misguided crush on you at some point does _not_ give you the right to—"

"All right, all right, I'm sorry!" He was still laughing, but by this time he had somehow drawn her under the Invisibility Cloak as well, a remarkable display of foresight on his part.

"And get your bloody hands off me!"

He smirked. "This whole working-together thing has not diluted the joy of making you ridiculously angry at all. I hope you know that." He did, however, get his bloody hands off her. "What are you doing up, anyway?"

"I might ask you the same," she countered, too quickly and defensively. _Well fuck him_, she thought furiously, using every iota of her self-control to stop herself from punching the lingering smirk off of his face, _it's none of his business._

"No, you mightn't. I'm a Slytherin. I'm obviously planning something evil. You, however, are Miss Perfect Prefect, who should be soundly asleep in her bed—"

"Don't start with me." She warned, a threatening hand on his chest, fingertips poised to jump up and fasten around his neck.

"All right, all right. An eye for an eye. I couldn't sleep, and so I'm trying to catch Greg Goyle in the act," he said, only a slight hint of humor in his tone.

She sighed, backing up, anger cooling. "I couldn't sleep either. I was taking a walk."

He blinked at her. "A walk?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes, a walk. Got a problem?"

He shook his head incredulously. "A walk. Fine." He sighed. "And obviously your feet dragged you here."

"As did yours." They stared at each other thoughtfully for a while. Rose noticed that Scorpius's skin was even paler than usual, and that the bruises of the shadows underneath his eyes were more pronounced than your average Hogwarts student's. His usually immaculate or at least dashingly disheveled hair was truly messy. He looked exhausted. _Too many ghosts_, she thought suddenly. _Both of us. Perhaps that's why I hated him in the first place—because he reminds me of myself, or maybe what I might have been._

Rose suddenly felt a strong connection to this boy she'd hated for so long, almost a literal physical pull toward him, like an industrial-strength magnet. Impulsively, she took his hand, studied it so she didn't have to see his reaction. Eventually he put his other hand over their joined ones. They stood like that for a minute.

Then he said, "What is it with you and me and standing around in silence?"

Her mouth quirked. "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

He laughed, a chuckle from somewhere deep in his throat. "You know, not to kill the moment or anything, but I've been wondering—why the hell hasn't something else happened yet?"

Rose nodded. "I've been thinking something similar. Why would someone just attack Ella? I mean, did you _see_ the girl? And now it's getting to look more like a one-off, but it doesn't make sense for it to be. It's a sick, sick person who bothers with the Dark Mark for a one-off."

"Maybe they chickened out."

She looked up into his eyes, dark with ill humor. "Again, who chickens out of _that_? To do something so drastic and then—" she didn't finish, shrugging helplessly.

"I don't know, Rose. I don't know." He sighed. "Lulling us into a false sense of security?"

Rose was quiet for a minute, thinking. The perpetrators would have to know that she and Scorpius were poking around. If they did… "Do you think they _know_?" It wasn't as though they had been making a secret of what they were doing, but it wasn't exactly widespread knowledge, either.

He gripped her hand tighter. "I don't know. If they do, we may be in deep, deep shit."

Rose tensed up slightly, chewing the inside of her cheek, agitated. Her eyes snapped up to his face. "Walk with me."

"Cloak's not big enough to cover both of us by now," he pointed out.

She waved a hand dismissively. "I don't need it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Cocky, aren't we?"

She shrugged. "I've never been much of a sleeper. I always take walks when I can't sleep."

He snorted. "Not much of a sleeper. Only you, Rose, only you."

She shrugged again and slipped out from under the Cloak, and they began to walk. They did not speak much out of necessity—they needed to be able to hear footsteps. There were a few close calls—Filch again, and some scheming Ravenclaws that they hid from out of caution and on principle. But mostly their walk was peaceful. Although she was not going to admit it even to herself, Rose enjoyed Scorpius's presence. During the first few minutes, she reached out a hand to check that he was still there beside her, but after that he made intermittent remarks, seeing her insecurity, and even later she just trusted he was there.

By the time they swung back around towards the Gryffindor dorms, it was a little after midnight. Scorpius had been quiet for a while, so Rose volunteered, "You know, I enjoyed this. Thanks for walking with me."

"Sure." His voice came through the dark as if it were coming out from behind a curtain. "You do this a lot, you said?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I… I just don't sleep well. Never have."

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence. "You should get that checked out."

Rose laughed lightly. "I don't need a Healer to tell me I'm an insomniac. Believe me, I know. It's how I get all my homework done."

Scorpius snorted. "Yes, well, that's everybody above Fourth Year. You should still have it seen to."

"Certainly, Mother," she quipped. _What does he care? Well, I'm not being fair, but so?_

He laughed a bit. "I suppose you'll tell me next I should have my lechery seen to."

She cocked her head. "Well… you're not half so bad as you make yourself out to be. At least you know what you are."

"I'm sticking my tongue out at you. Just so you know."

She laughed, then got quiet. They were approaching a corner now, and she always got most paranoid before turning corners. She stopped to listen. Years of practice allowed her to detect the slight susurrus. She frowned. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Rose stopped him from turning the corner by flinging an arm in the general direction of his chest. "Peek around there for me, will you," she whispered. Voices. Animated voices.

Scorpius did so, and abruptly tugged her under the Cloak. She glowered. "Will you _stop_—"

"Shut up." Startled, she complied. She had only heard that certain tone in his voice a few times in all the time she'd known him, and it had never been good. He looked again. "Fucking Merlin. Fuck fuck fuck."

"Professors?"

He turned his face to her, and his eyes were wide and pale with fear, as was the rest of him. "Much worse." His voice rasped in his throat. She looked at him concernedly. _What—_ "They, um. They even went to the trouble of copying the cowls."

A violent shiver ran down Rose's spine, and she clutched his sleeve. "You're not serious."

"Do you honestly think," and she knew by the tense way he bit this out, even before he had finished the sentence she knew, "that I would be stupid enough or cruel enough to make it up?"

Adrenaline raced through her veins, adrenaline and fear. Blood pounded in her ears, and she was sweating cold bullets. She trembled and clutched Scorpius, her knuckles snow-capped and sharp against her skin. "I'm not ready for this," she rasped.

"Should we wait them out—"

"No." Her heart was ravaging her ribcage, and she could feel Scorpius's doing the same to his against the hand with which she now gripped his shirtfront.

"You're not suggesting we—I mean, we're so vastly outnumbered—" he looked at her and said, "Oh god, Rose. No. Please. Don't do this. You don't know what they'll do to us—to _you_—"

"But if, before they did it, if I saw just one face, immobilized just one—"

"The chances are miniscule! You could get seriously hurt!"

"I don't give a shit! What they did to Ella—"

It was about then that they realized that the hall had gone quiet. "Who's there," called a voice neither of them recognized. "Come on out. We won't hurt you." The words were contradicted by the snickering following them.

"You have your wand?" she whispered.

Scorpius scoffed, wand slipping out from his sleeve and into his hand. "Stupid question, darling."

Rose already had her own wand out. "We have to stay under the Cloak for as long as we can."

"Come on! Come out, guys. We need to see who you are," said the same voice as before, sweet as poisoned honey.

"Ready?"

"No. I just realized I like you a lot more than I thought I did." Scorpius reached over and squeezed her hand. "Please don't get killed."

Rose squeezed back. "Ditto. And if _you _die, I will be so, so angry with you."

They took a simultaneous deep breath, turned the corner, and started hexing like mad.

It took about five minutes for their attackers to catch on to where they were based on the direction their hexes were coming from, and one more to notice their shoes poking out from under the Cloak. Without warning him, Rose ran out from under the Cloak and to the other side of the hall.

"Weasley! I should've known," one growled. "_Petrificus Totalus_!"

Rose deflected it and disarmed him, then quickly turned and threw a Bat-Bogey Hex at someone else. She could hear virulent swearing from Scorpius across the hall.

There were only ten of them, but it felt like so much more. Rose was deflecting hexes furiously, casting faster than she could get the proper incantations off her tongue. She tried to keep track of Scorpius, but he was moving about constantly, now here, now there, and eventually she decided to keep her mind on her attackers.

She turned just in time to be hit by a jet of red light—only to have it be deflected by Scorpius, who had emerged beside her. "As soon as this is over," he panted, "_Confundo_! We will have words, Miss Weasley."

She smiled and cursed someone so forcefully that he (she?) audibly hit the wall.

"I'm serious. You ever—_Petrificus Totalus_!—pull that shit on me again, I'll kill you myself!"

One of the would-be Death Eaters was staring. "Scorpius Malfoy?"

"The one and only," said Scorpius, "_Furnunculus_!"

Rose laughed. "I'm glad I brought you along. _Expelliarmus_!"

"You ought to be."

There were now four attackers still standing, and one of them was beginning to resuscitate the others. Scorpius swore and sent several curses Rose wasn't sure were entirely legal towards him, but the others deflected all of them, forming a protective semicircle around him.

Rose was still cursing and hexing as quickly as possible, but she was also scanning the fallen and those still standing. Listening to the curses, trying to identify voices, hoping for a ripped cloth or something through which she could see a snatch of recognizable face. Suddenly an idea came to her. _I can make my own rips!_

"_Diffindo_!" she cried, aiming at someone aiming his or her wand at Scorpius. The hood ripped, but she couldn't see anything of note. She cast the spell again at someone else.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?"

"Trying to unmask them!"

"Well, can you cast curses too? They're getting back up!"

"Fine. _Flipendo_!" She continued casting curses and at intervals _Diffindo_, but never got anything more than a flash of hair, maybe an eye color. She was getting increasingly worried. How long could they hold them off?

"_Stupefy_!" said someone, and the red jet almost hit Scorpius. Rose countered it with a quick "_Protego_!" and in so doing did not see the curse headed her way.

The pain was stunning. Overriding. Rose fell to the floor, unable to bear it. She coughed, and her vision blurred when she saw that the fluid that came up was red. She thought she heard Scorpius yelling her name, footsteps, more curses. She tried to speak, to tell Scorpius that she was all right, don't do anything stupid, but the pain was too much. Too much. _I'm sorry_, she tried to say, but then her vision dimmed, and she remembered nothing after that.

#

Rose slept for a long time after that, longer than she had in years. She had strange dreams full of blood and blinding meteors that must have been spells, but did not wake for what seemed like an eternity. When finally she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was James and Scorpius arguing.

"Why didn't you protect her?"

"I did the best I could! I told you a thousand times, there was nothing I could have done, and if you believe that I'm not ready to jump off the Astronomy Tower over this, then you've got another think coming!"

"Scorp, Scorp, don't be so dramatic," Albus pleaded, standing between his brother and his friend. "And James, let him alone."

"I won't! Son of a bitch probably cursed Rosie himself!"

"How dare you," Scorpius growled, and leapt at James, Albus barely restraining them both, saying, "Guys, guys! Stop!"

Rose tried to sit up and failed, hitting her already smarting head against the headboard. At least the thump got their attention. Scorpius was the first one at her bedside by dint of being the closest and immediately was beside her, grabbing her shoulders and saying, "Are you all right? Sweet Merlin, you're awake! Is your head hurting? Do you want water?"

When she assured him that she was fine, and that she wasn't thirsty, he sighed and turned a powerful glare on her. "Do you have any idea how terribly you scared me?" he said quietly, dangerously. "You have been in bed for three days. Three fucking days! And not only that, but you had to get hit while protecting _me_. Fucking Merlin's testicles, Rose, I don't matter! And then there was the business with you running out from under the Invisibility Cloak. _What the fuck possessed you_?"

"I had to distract—"

"No fucking excuses! I do not want excuses from you, missy."

Well, Rose had to start laughing then. "Missy?" she said between giggles. "Are you serious?"

"No—yes—_listen to my bloody lecture_, you stupid, brave, stupid bint!"

The laughter hurt, so she stopped, but she was still grinning widely. Scorpius stared at her for a moment, a strange look in his eyes.

Suddenly he pulled her to him, fingers threading in her hair as he said, "I am so, so fucking grateful you're alive."

Then James shoved roughly at Scorpius's shoulder. "All right, that's enough, Malfoy. I only let you talk because you were expressing my sentiments exactly." Scorpius flipped him off but moved aside. Then Rose's family descended on her with all their might, hugs and tears and kisses and laughter and yelling. From the cacophony and general disorder, Rose was able to discern that Scorpius had flown into a rage when she'd been knocked unconscious, or possibly that her attacker had realized the gravity of what he had done and fled, taking the others with him and casting _Mobilicorpus_ on the ones who were still unconscious. She was also told that her injuries had mostly been flesh wounds, but that she had gone into a coma for three days due to blood loss and shock. Most of them came to visit whenever they could, but James, Albus, Hugo, and, surprisingly, Scorpius refused to move from her bedside.

She looked at them all with tears in her eyes. "I love you all so much."

"And we love you," James said in his rare fond tones.

"Are you in pain at all?" Scorpius asked worriedly. "It's Mrs. Quince's lunch break right now, but I could find you pain-relieving potion—" Mrs. Quince was the resident nurse.

"I hurt a little bit, Scorpius—don't get up!—but it's not that bad. What I would really like is some food."

"What do you want? Your wish is my command," Scorpius said with a grin and a bow, which caused James to roll his eyes.

Rose laughed, ignoring the pain. "You pompous prat! Let's see, I want—"

"Before you say anything, Miss Weasley, you should know that you're on a diet for a bit. Upsetting your stomach right now would be a very bad idea," said Mrs. Quince as she briskly entered the room and pointed her wand at Rose, who flinched involuntarily. "Oh, dear, don't be afraid! I'm just going to run some standard tests," the woman said, sympathetic and slightly surprised.

Rose smiled awkwardly, sheepish. "Sorry, I—it's just—"

"No one blames you, dear. Just relax. Mr. Malfoy, get the girl some pumpkin juice and something light to eat."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Light?"

"Fruits. Salad. Something like that," Quince said dismissively, flicking her wand about in front of Rose. Scorpius left.

Finally Quince finished. "All right, Miss Weasley. You are mostly healed, but I'm going to keep you here for another two days just in case. You had a few internal injuries, and I think it would be best if you got some extra rest."

Rose nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Quince."

The witch smiled. "My pleasure. You're much more polite than most of my patients, who whine that I'm keeping them from Quidditch or somesuch nonsense," she said with a look toward James and Albus, who had the decency to color slightly. "Now, will the rest of you leave? Please? Miss Weasley needs as much rest as she can get."

Grumbling and muttering, her family filed out, everyone giving her goodbye hugs. Scorpius soon returned with fruit salad and pumpkin juice for her, as well as a chocolate frog. He told her to hide the latter, just in case. "Well, surely she can't forbid me chocolate," Rose said jokingly.

"Oh, that woman can and will do anything." They laughed, and then lapsed into awkward silence. Suddenly Scorpius said, "Thank you. I owe you. But you shouldn't have protected me. It was only a stun. What he did to you—"

But Rose was shaking her head. "Just be grateful. Or—better—thank me and forget about it. I don't have any permanent injuries, so don't worry."

"But—"

"If you don't stop, I'll call Quince and tell her you're disturbing my rest," Rose said frankly.

Scorpius laughed, sitting on her bed. "That's just cruel."

Rose nodded slightly to show that she conceded his point, but said, "Don't underestimate me, Scorpius."

He took her hand. "I never will again."

Rose sighed. "You really are a pompous prat."

He grinned. "I know. Are you going to sleep for once? I'm always available for walking, but Quince would probably have a conniption."

She smiled back. "I think I'll try to sleep. But when classes finish, come back and bring me books."

"Yes, your highness."

She shoved him playfully. "Oh, just go. Perhaps you'll learn something useful. Or maybe some manners."

"By that wording you imply that manners aren't useful." She rolled her eyes and opened her mouth but he said, "Good night, Rose," pulled her into a slightly clumsy one-armed hug, and left. She sighed and shook her head, then lay down and segued into sleep with unprecedented ease.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

When Scorpius was not in classes, he was with her. She started to smell of sweat and fever on the second day, and through her protests of, "I'm fine!" and, "This is ludicrous! The only sickness I have is stir craziness," Quince consigned her to four more days. Her eyes glazed and she only recognized Scorpius half the time when he visited her.

It was a short time, but it was a bad time. Scorpius did not know how to deal with these feelings he was having for her, this gut-gnawing worry and this desperate pull toward her, like she was a planet and he a mere piece of space detritus tugged by accident into her orbit. He could not get anything related to the case done, and he began to drown his anxiety in sex.

The sex or makeout sessions—which it was varied depending on the girl and the day—weren't bad, mostly. It was just that he felt empty in a way he had before, but hadn't noticed as much. And girls got frustrated with him because he operated essentially on the Hospital Wing's visiting hours. He was not once late for a visit with Rose.

Albus noticed, and tried to dissuade his friend, unnerved at just how off-kilter and out of sorts the usually unflappable Scorpius was. But Scorpius refused, always arriving late for his clandestine closet/Room of Requirement meetings and always leaving early so as to be sure to bring Rose this textbook or that homework.

Scorpius was aware, on some level, just how deeply and inordinately this was affecting him, but chose not to care. He delivered his hollow kisses and received hollow head, all the while worrying at how sick Rose had looked last time he checked on her.

He arrived now, hair tousled and sweaty, his arms full of books. He made his way to the familiar bed, where Rose was sitting up reading. He smiled at her. "Hey, Rose. How are you?"

She looked up and smiled back at him. "Evening, Scorpius." Her gaze turned a bit disapproving as she eyed his appearance. "I am fine, but _you_ are looking a bit the worse for wear. You get in a fight or something?"

"Not exactly," he said tersely. "Anyway, I brought you your books. They're damn heavy."

She accepted his change of topic with only a wry eyebrow for comment and said, "Thank you, I know. And the substantive portion is much lighter than the thing itself." She reached over to take one, putting down her book, but Scorpius placed them at the edge of the bed.

"Not yet. Talk to me a bit first."

She laughed and said, "Y'know, time was when you'd do anything to avoid talking to me."

"Time was when you'd realize that if I'm willing to haul ass over here and stay all hours of the night, I expect some kind of reward."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Fine. Any news on the Ella case? Do you remember anything? Find out anything new?"

Scorpius cleared his throat. "Haven't really been able to concentrate on that too much lately."

"Haven't you? So what have you been doing, when not carting around my textbooks?" she asked teasingly, leaning forward on her elbows.

He fought a grin. She looked sweet like that, all impetuous smile and eyes bright with amusement rather than fever. He sighed. "When the hell are you getting out of here, Rose?"

Rose sighed too. "I don't know. Quince said four days last time, right? It's been three, and I feel pretty good. Believe me, I'm going so stir crazy I actually tried to sneak out."

Scorpius laughed with surprise. "Did you?"

She proceeded to tell him the whole story, which of course involved her being unable to sleep, and then climbing out the window and making so much noise because she was tired and sick and uncoordinated that Quince caught her and made her take a Sleeping Draught.

"Oh god. Oh Rose, what a stupid—oh, you bloody insane bint. See, if I'd have been there—" he smiled—"you would've gotten out."

She rolled her eyes. "The sad thing is, I believe you."

"But seriously, you need to get some rest if you're going to get better. Sleep is really important—"

"Yes, Mother." She gave him a pointed look.

His grin turned sheepish. "Sorry. But it's hard not to mother you. You're always—I don't know—endangering yourself. And if you don't hurry up and get better, I won't be able to work up enough focus to get to the bottom of the Ella thing."

She wrinkled her nose. "We need to think of a better name for it." She thought a moment. "I'm always _endangering_ myself?" She raised a wry eyebrow.

"You are. Taking curses for me, getting sick, trying to sneak out the window…"

"Pfft. That's not dangerous," she laughed.

He shook his head. "You're impossible."

They were quiet for a time, during which Rose stared at him thoughtfully and he sat silently, trying to let her ride out her thoughts. Finally he couldn't take it and asked, "What's eating you?"

"Nothing, just—why the hell are we friends now? I mean, I hated you for six years, and now after all of, what, two weeks, I can't remember why." She frowned. "It's kind of weird, is all."

Scorpius shrugged. "It is a bit strange, I guess. I never really thought about it." He couldn't stop himself from adding, "Once it started, it just felt… natural." He sighed. "I don't know. I think it's a bit like magnets, you know? On one side they repel each other, but if you turn them around…"

She was smiling. "That's such a cheesy analogy. But it makes sense."

He returned her grin. "I know."

Suddenly they both heard someone laughing, and Albus came around to sit on the side of the bed. "Well damn. That's a sight I never thought I'd see."

"What?" Rose asked confusedly. Scorpius stayed silent, knowing a setup when he saw one.

"My cousin and my best friend agreeing on something."

Rose stuck her tongue out at him. "Whatever, Albus. Just accept the newfound peace and quiet."

They all talked until the boys had to leave for dinner. Scorpius would have skipped his meal, but Albus dragged him away. They walked quietly in the hall for a while.

Then Albus finally broke the silence. "Mate," he said softly but insistently, "you're sweet on Rosie, aren't you?"

Scorpius blinked. "No. Why would you say that?"

Albus raised his eyebrows. "Because I know you, Scorp. You're giving her that 'sun shines out of your ass' look."

Scorpius laughed a bit nervously. "Sun shines out of—I wasn't aware I had such a look."

"You do. You looked at Emily that way."

Scorpius winced. Emily Carter had been one of his few "serious" girlfriends. He had been in love with her, really in love with her, but finally she had broken it off. She told him he was too clingy and overprotective. He had gotten over it, and she had since transferred out of Hogwarts, but he still didn't enjoy discussing the relationship's rocky trajectory. "Did you have to mention her? She's distant past."

"And Rose is the future?"

"No. I don't see why you're insisting I feel anything other than friendship towards your cousin."

"Because I fucking know when you're lying, Scorpius!" Albus sighed, running a hand through his messy hair. "Look, if you say you really don't, I'll believe you. If you look sincere. Which you didn't, just now." He put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "It's—you know, it's not like I'd necessarily mind, if you did. Don't worry about that. If you hurt her—well, that'd be a different story. But I think—" he stopped himself. "So. Do you? Like her?"

Scorpius threw his hands in the air. "She's fucking insane. And really smart. And I have no idea what I had against her before. She's frustrating as hell and I don't know what the fuck to do with her, except I know I want to do something."

Albus raised an eyebrow.

Scorpius gave him a look.

Albus stared back.

Finally, Scorpius sighed deeply and said, "So what if I did? Just a little bit?"

Albus smirked. "Knew it."

Scorpius waved a dismissive hand at his friend. "Yeah, whatever. Smartass." He shrugged, mood darkening. "But it's not like I could do anything about it. Even if I did feel strongly—which I don't, I'll admit that I feel something but I'm not about to bend down on one knee—my father and her father would kill us both."

Albus studied him, then said slowly, "I don't know about that, Scorp. Uncle Ron is actually pretty accepting. He just has to be given time to come around. He's nice to you at Christmas and summers, isn't he?"

"Nice enough. Me being your friend is one thing. Me being involved with his daughter—_don't_ get any ideas—is entirely another."

Albus shrugged. "I'm not going to make you date my cousin, Scorp. I just want you to understand that if you do—well, I would be fine with it. Just as long," his intense green gaze caught Scorpius's, "as you promise not to hurt her."

Scorpius shook his head. "I don't think I could if I tried anymore. I promise you that if something does happen between Rose and me—which it won't—I will try my best not to hurt your cousin, and to make amends for it if I do. You have my word."

Albus nodded. "And you understand that if you break your promise—not that I think you will—family is extremely important, and it will be my duty to protect Rosie?"

Scorpius smiled at his friend. "You have my express permission to beat me up and lock me in a portable loo."

Albus laughed. "All right. Sorry about the interrogation."

Scorpius shook his head, indicating he wasn't upset. "But I'm not madly in love with your cousin or anything." He paused. "And if you say _anything_ to her, you are a dead man, best friend or not."

Albus stuck out his tongue. "I won't tell her. She'll probably figure it out."

Scorpius's stomach dropped. "Oh shit. You think so? You know there can't be anything between us, there just—"

Albus guffawed. "Calm the fuck down, man! Rosie's good with books, but she's only good with people that appreciate her honesty. She doesn't know how they work like you do."

And as soon as the words left Albus's mouth, Scorpius knew they weren't true. She could use, had used Demetri Ivers, he had seen it in his eyes and in her face, and there was no question about it. Albus wasn't lying, he could see the honesty in his friend's deep green eyes, but he knew somehow the underlying untruth of it. And it wasn't that he thought Rose was bad—how could something so clean and beautiful and pure and young be bad? But he knew she wasn't the innocent her cousin thought she was. And he wanted instantly to know (because everything about this girl pulled him in and turned him inside out and hurt him and elated him) why there was this discrepancy, how it had come about, what the real story was.

He shrugged and said a blank, "All right," wanting very badly to go back and—what? Confront her? Entreat her? He had questions, many questions, but didn't know how to pose them. Whether she thought them close enough even to answer.

He had a date after dinner, but he was thinking of canceling, because once again he could feel her tugging him inexorably into her orbit. She called his name in that affectionate way she called Albus, with a burning in her eyes that he'd never actually seen but knew must hide somewhere in their dark, tumultuous depths.

He snorted. _God. "No, I'm only a little in love with her."_ He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation, the fingernails of his other hand pressing into his palm. _Shit. I need to stop. This is bad for me. I'm going to see that girl—what's her name? Amelia?_

"Scorpius?"

Scorpius shook his head to clear his thoughts, then smiled over at his friend. "I'm fine. Let's go eat."

#

Amelia, he discovered, was a sloppy kisser. Her name also wasn't Amelia. It was Alana. She was rather a loud moaner, too, and he found himself wishing he'd cast a more powerful silencing spell. He was able to overlook the sloppy thing for a while, and for a minute or two he was really into it. But for a minute or two he had thought he felt auburn hair under his fingers, and freckled cheeks brushing his. The sun had always been generous with Rose Weasley.

It had not been generous with Amelia, who was pale and small and emaciated. She had equally diminutive dark eyes through which shone her Slytherin cunning, and a sharp slash of a nose.

She had her hands all over his shirt buttons, mouthing messily at the skin between the cloth. _Oh, for god's sake. I really don't want to be doing this. My pride is not going to allow me to go see Rose, but my time could be more profitably spent sleeping._

"I'm sorry, Alana, I just realized—I'm going to be late for rounds. I'm so sorry," he said sincerely. Scorpius was good at lying.

"Oh." She said, disappointed. "Well… you could skip rounds…" She trailed a finger down his chest.

He sighed inwardly. _This bint obviously does not know how being a prefect works._ "No, if I skip once more, they'll strip me of prefect status," Scorpius said firmly but adding the proper dosage of regret to his tone.

"All right. But owl me," she said in a way she thought was seductive. She walked away swaying her hips.

Scorpius sighed deeply, started walking. It took him until he was about halfway down the hall to realize where he was going. He stopped, leaned against the wall. "Oh, shit." He closed his eyes and let the darkness coat his eyelids. "She's getting out tomorrow, probably," he told himself aloud. "I don't need to see her today. I don't want to see her—" he paused. "_Fuck_." And he kept going towards the Hospital Wing.

He had not too much trouble sneaking in—Quince was out and pretty much everyone but Rose was sleeping. She did not see him immediately, being immersed in her book, and he watched her tuck an unruly curl behind her ear. Finally he cleared his throat, walking over.

"Scorpius!" she said happily, and then giggled as she put her hands over her mouth, realizing she'd been too loud.

He gave her a wan, thin smile. "Hi."

"So," she whispered from behind her hands, eyes bright, "Quince is letting me out tomorrow."

"Is she? That's good. I still haven't been able to get anything done without my muse." He poked her nose over her hands to show that he meant her.

She took her hands away from her face, grinning. "You're so bloody pompous."

"I know. So are you." He sighed. "So you feel all better now?"

"Yes. Except that I've got to finish this homework before I sleep if I'm going to classes tomorrow."

"Your health is more important than your homework, Rose. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true," Scorpius said, his tone half teasing, half serious.

"Mm. I don't know about that, Scorpius," she said, eyes alight with amusement. "Oh, by the way, Ella's finally out of the hospital… but someone else is in."

Scorpius raised his eyebrows. "You think it was them?"

Rose sighed. "There was a bandage around the kid's head. He's been unconscious for three days, and I heard he was hanging by his wrists from a beam in the Great Hall. And—" her eyes darted around the room—"there was another Dark Mark by his head."

Scorpius's brow furrowed. "Who found him?" He thought some more, then added, "Unconscious? So we can't interview him?"

She laughed. "Aren't you going to ask whether he's all right? Some teachers found him."

Scorpius waved a playful hand at her. "Well, is he?"

"Mostly. He'll live." Rose sighed. "I have to get out of here. _We_ have to figure out who did this."

"I know. I really—I just don't remember fucking anything. It's really frustrating."

Rose rubbed at her eyes, prompting Scorpius to open his mouth with an anxious, "Are you tired? Should I go?" on his tongue, but she continued, saying, "I have a few guesses. They're shaky, but—do you have a quill and parchment?"

Scorpius quickly turned and rummaged through his bag, easily coming up with a self-inking quill and fresh parchment, and handed them over to Rose with a flourish. She rolled her eyes, then quickly scratched out ten names. She blew on the ink, folding the paper crisply. "It should be self-evident that if you drop this someplace, we could get in a lot of trouble," she said in a low voice, her gaze heavy on his face.

"It is. I won't." He paused. "Exactly how certain are you of these guesses?"

Rose sighed. "None of them a hundred percent, that's for sure. But I've had some time to think and rule out people as objectively as I can. On average, I'd say—sixty to seventy percent sure?" She tangled her fingers in the bedding. "God, I hate this. Did I have to endure this _Sectumsempra_ shit for nothing?"

He smiled softly at her. "This is something, isn't it?"

She looked at him, sighed. Slowly, tentatively, she reached out a hand, which he eagerly took. They stayed like that for a while. Scorpius wanted to open his mouth to tell her to sleep, he should leave—after all, he was getting so fucking dependent on the feel of that slender hand in his, wasn't he?—but he stayed, because how often exactly did Rose Weasley feel affectionate, particularly towards him?

She was moving again, at that same dragging, uncertain pace, bringing his hand—where, oh god, where, where? She brought it to rest on her cheek, the corner of her mouth pressing into his palm like a flower hastily pressed into the hand of a lover (and if he's thinking metaphors like that, he's _really_ in trouble). "I trust you," she whispered into his hand, so quietly that he could only just determine what she had said by the movements of her lips. "Be careful."

He couldn't look at her. _Fuck_, did she know what she _did_ to him? After such a short—

But then, had it really been so short a time? His father would often joke (with a hint of warning in his voice that Scorpius had to get older to catch) that if he pulled Rose Weasley's pigtails one more time, her hair would just fall out.

Scorpius shifted uncomfortably. He really didn't want to think about that right now. He closed his eyes, opened them again, responded to her request hushed like a prayer: "I will. You too. Please."

That quiet little laugh, and he didn't know why they were both speaking so softly now but it didn't matter. She let go of his hand, placing the parchment and quill in his palm in the same motion. "Good night, Scorpius."

And some five minutes later, he was walking down the hall in a confused state of longing and emptiness and fullness and wondering when the bloody hell he had fallen so hard for this girl. Why he had fallen so hard for this girl, when it could only end in a train wreck.


	10. Chapter Nine

**_Author's Note:_** _Hey all! So I was reading through this, 'cause I just... DO, sometimes (I'm not egotistical, I'm not!) and I noticed a few inconsistencies if you didn't notice them before, never mind this message :P but in case you did: I wrote Madam Pomfrey instead of Madam Quince for the first few chapters, before realizing that Pomfrey probably wouldn't still be alive, and that, were she, she would probably be retired. Also, it's a little unclear whether Rose and Scorpius are in Fifth or Sixth Year. I'm gonna say Sixth. I'm not going to fix these because I don't want to bother y'all with emails :P, so just pretend lol. Hope you enjoy the next chapter, and thank you all so, SO much for your support!_

**Chapter Nine**

Rose felt his hand in hers on her cheek, heard the audible surcease of his breath, wondered what in hell she'd done. She could see it now, feel him pulled toward her as if she had a magnet embedded in her core. Her fists tightened around her blankets as she realized: oh god, he's _attracted_ to me.

Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions, but that wasn't what the chill that ricocheted down her spine told her. It said, _Spot on, harlot._

What could she have done to draw the eye of Scorpius Malfoy? _Doesn't he have a thing for dumb blondes?_ She thought desperately, ridiculously. Did she want this? Her brain screamed no, but her gut hesitated. It could never end well, she told herself. But she still heard that tiny part of her that said, so?

She sighed and sank back into her pillows. Things had gotten so much harder since she had "blossomed," as her mother put it, at the end of Fourth Year. She was used to being seen for her parents and for her intellect. But at the end of Fourth Year, her face started looking a little different. She grew into her body. She hadn't really noticed until her family began to say things like, "Well, Rosie, you'll certainly be a heartbreaker." She started feeling eyes on her ass and her legs and her chest and she felt altogether too watched.

Some boys started talking to her, boys who wouldn't give her the time of day a month ago. Some even got up the nerve to ask her out. They were all too young to know that you don't wear your heart on your sleeve like that, that you don't just dangle it in front of someone, roughened and bleeding. She was too young and for once too stupid not to reach out and take them, take the hearts and feel them pumping in her hands, and she took too long to realize that the rush she was feeling as they throbbed was power. The eyes and the hearts of these boys hung on her every word! How could she not notice, how could she not care? So many hearts crushed in her unknowing fingers, how steep this ungodly tally.

She might not even notice for a while, when a boy liked her, heart's-blood dripping onto oblivious hands, but then she would. And then this monster forged by her newfound beauty would bat her eyelashes and take the heart in her spindly fingers.

But this was different. Scorpius Malfoy's eyes, the color of stone parapets, were staring straight back into her own, not down at the floor in deference. He was holding out his heart, dripping blood on her hands, but he was jerking it away, not fully submitting to her, sharp nose defiantly in the air as he vacillated—back, forth, back, forth. And she thought, no, his eyes were not the color of parapets, but of silver daggers ripping through her façade and seeing everything—seeing the truth.

She wrapped her arms around herself. _Not yet, Scorpius, please. I'm not ready to feel so exposed, I—you'll have your answers. Just not yet._

Her breathing slowed, eased, and she lay down, whispering "_Nox_," to quench the wand light she'd been reading by. But she still felt him in her, whispering her name and cracking her veneer, his fingers just touching her heart—or were those her fingers there, ready to rip it out and offer it, against all odds?

_God I hate you_, she thought fiercely. _Why do you always get under my skin? It's not fair! Stop poking, stop prying at me. I might just trust you more than I should._

But she had, hadn't she? "I trust you."

Rose sighed. _Just forget about stupid Malfoy and whatever stupid baggage he brings with him._

#

The injunction to forget about Malfoy was a little bit harder to observe when he seemed always to be underfoot and she seemed—well, happier when he was around. It wasn't necessarily because of him, of course—she _never_ got any work done when he visited—but it was better than sitting around in the Hospital Wing.

And now he was going to escort her out. Quince was chattering at him about how Ms. Weasley should be very careful and take this tincture and this pill three times a day. He was nodding solemnly, so Rose figured it was quite all right if she determinedly didn't listen. She simply watched Scorpius's head bobbing as he listened to Quince, and the way his mouth moved to form cultured syllables when he talked. She started to see him, _really_ see him, because before she had always seen the boy she hated and now she saw someone who she'd never really gotten to know, but perhaps should have.

The first thing she noticed was that he wasn't as sharp as his father was. She did not see Draco Malfoy often, but when she did she was always struck by the sheer angles and bony points of his face. He had given his sharp nose to his son, but Scorpius wore it better. He had inherited his father's lines and angles, too, but softer, less defined. He hadn't received his father's mouth at all. Draco's mouth was a thin, hard edge, the corner of a hardcover book. Scorpius's mouth was slightly pouty, the lower lip being fuller than the upper, but was saved from being over-effeminate by virtue of its being a shade wide. Draco looked like a walking skeleton, but Scorpius was living, breathing. He exuded life, she realized, she saw it in every gesture and every curve muscled from Quidditch. While his father—his father might as well be an Inferi, he so resembled the walking dead. Looking at Draco Malfoy was like looking at an old photograph that was clearly staring back at you.

He looked at her, amusement in his eyes, and she stuck her tongue out at him. "So can I go?" she asked Quince.

The nurse smiled. "You may. You heard all my instructions?"

"Yes," she lied, "Thank you, Mrs. Quince!" She got up quickly with an energetic little wave, then dragged a snickering Scorpius out of the Hospital Wing.

"Where are we going?" he asked, still laughing. His eyes looked less like blades when he laughed, she noticed.

"The Room of Requirement, where you're going to tell me what you did last night, and then we're going to make some plans."

"Oh, Rose, I don't think you want to know what I did last night," he said, voice laced with faux licentiousness.

She rolled her eyes. "You're not funny, you know."

"Only sometimes." He winked, grinning.

She smiled back, briefly, then remembered that she couldn't encourage him. Her father—but really, she could get around him if she tried. He loved her enough, she thought, that he would eventually come around whoever she decided she wanted for the rest of her life. Not that it would be Scorpius. Nothing was going to happen with Scorpius; it couldn't. She wasn't sure his father was the same way as hers—but that still wasn't it. She didn't like how invaded she felt sometimes, when he would look at her and seem like he was seeing everything. Every detestable mistake she had ever made, every flaw, all privy to his sharp gaze. She preferred when he looked angry or annoyed with her, because then he wasn't really seeing. Or when he laughed.

They reached the Room all too soon, and opened the door to find the same comfortable room that it had come up with when she had asked Scorpius to help her with the case so long ago. It had barely been a month since that time, but it felt as though it had been a year. _Things have changed so much_, Rose thought, placing a hand on her chest. It still hurt sometimes, although the wounds the spell had created were sealed, and the weight of her palm eased the pain. She thought she'd heard Quince say something about a painkiller potion, but she hadn't given any to Rose or Scorpius, so Rose had decided not to bother asking. She could make some herself, or make use of Scorpius's potions abilities.

"You all right?" He was watching her with that piercing, slicing gaze again. This time, though, she saw clouds of worry in the gray eyes. Those were clearly his father's, she thought absently.

"Fine." She sat. "All right. Did you do anything with the names?"

"I thought about them." He took the list out of his pocket and unfolded it, resting it between them on the table. He didn't need to do that; she had already memorized the names. She had deliberated a great deal before putting them down.

_Dana Carrow_

_Lila Crowley_

_Lawrence Boot_

_David Greengrass_

_Jay Bishop_

_Katerina Edgecombe_

_Jeannine la Coeur_

_Jean la Coeur_

_Lucy Winston_

_Aliana Parkinson-Moreau_

"So some of these make sense. What I don't get is why Boot is on here, why Annabeth isn't and her sister is, and why the la Coeur twins are on here."

Rose sighed. "Well, I told you, I've had a lot of time to pick over memories. Pick up on things I didn't notice then. Even if I've not been totally lucid the whole time, I've checked and checked again, and I'm pretty sure about these." She took a breath. "As to Lucy—she looks an awful lot like Annabeth, don't you think?"

Scorpius frowned. "Well, yeah, but you can tell them apart pretty easily if they're both facing you. Annabeth is prettier."

"Because Lucy's got that scar on her chin, right?"

Scorpius shrugged. "That's probably part of it."

"And they sound pretty alike too."

Scorpius caught on. "You think I heard Lucy that night."

Rose nodded. "It would make more sense. Lucy is in Ravenclaw, but you wouldn't know it by talking to her. She's obsessed with blood purity. She says she's interested in genetics, but I've heard tell the Winstons were pretty pure before her mother married a half-blood. It might be Lucy was indoctrinated with pureblood values and not her sister. If so, well, we know from experience that nobody hates Muggleborns like a half-blood."

Scorpius made a face. "It _would_ make sense. But I'm pretty sure I heard Annabeth."

"Yeah, but if you heard a voice that sounded like one of the Winston sisters, which one are you more likely to think of first?"

"What?"

Rose sighed. "You see Annabeth at least once a week. She would probably come to mind before Lucy, no? And you'd be so shocked by the fact that you heard Annabeth saying something so heinous that it wouldn't occur to you that it might not be Annabeth, but someone who sounds almost exactly like her."

Scorpius bit the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. "I don't know. Maybe." He eyed the list again and said, "What about the la Coeurs?"

"Do you remember when I asked you to get me some books on French wizarding lineage?"

"Um… yeah, I thought that was a bit weird," Scorpius said noncommittally.

"Yeah, well, I could've sworn I heard some of our neo-Death Eaters speaking French. And they're transfer students we know nothing about. If they had a connection to Voldemort or one of his followers, we wouldn't know about it. Anyway, I followed this hunch and looked them up in that book, and they're traditionally a Dark family."

"It's a bit thin."

She sighed. "Oh, so's this whole thing, Scorpius. If we don't investigate and weed out the thin stuff as we go, we're not even going to have anywhere to start."

Scorpius made a point conceded gesture. "All right, so—Boot?"

"Is a bad egg. I dated him for about six months—"

"I'm noticing a trend here," he said with a smirk.

"Shut up. Really."

"Sorry." The eyes again, which Rose pointedly ignored.

"Anyway, Boot is mental. He got drunk one night—"

"Were you drunk too?"

"What's it to you?" she grinned—and met blades. She looked down at her hands. "I wasn't. That's why I remember. I don't do stuff like that."

"I figured you didn't." He was smiling a bit, and though it seemed colored with relief she couldn't help but respond tetchily.

"Oh, so now I'm the blushing virgin because I didn't get wasted with my boyfriend. Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, anyone ever tell you that?"

He stared at her for a second. "What was that? I didn't say anything."

"No, but you looked it. I forgot how insensitive you can be."

"I forgot how touchy you can be. What's your issue? I didn't _say_ anything!"

"I told you, you didn't have to! You know, you're always judging me! I thought we were past that!"

"Judging—for Christ's sake, just tell me what I _said_!"

"I fucking told you. 'I figured you didn't.' You don't know."

He sighed and said, "Oh honey. I didn't mean it like—oh, fuck's sake. I wasn't trying to _imply_ anything. You're—I mean, how would I even say anything like that to you? You're—"

Her blood was too cold, or too hot, or something like that. "What? What am I?"

He threw up his hands. "I was going to say wonderful. However stupid and cliché that sounds."

Rose looked down at her hands. "You're full of shit, Scorpius Malfoy, I'll tell you."

"Just did," he said softly, and she didn't have to look at his face to know he was smiling.

"Do you really think that?"

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't." He paused. "Shit, Rose, I—" he sighed. "Never mind."

She took his hand.

"You drive me crazy."

"I know." She drew circles on the back of his hand with her thumb. "So you want me to tell you about Boot?"

"No. Yes." She stood, still holding his hand, and walked over to his side of the table, sitting on it so she was facing him.

"Which?" she asked, amusement in her voice.

"Shit. Yeah."

She laughed. "You don't have to listen to appease me."

"No, c'mon. Tell me about Larry Boot getting wasted," he laughed.

"Well, Larry was drinking, right, getting really wasted, and I felt uncomfortable, so I told him we should get back to school. He wouldn't leave. I told him I would leave without him, and he said I was an impure bitch whelped from a Mudblood and a blood traitor not worth the air I breathed, so I should submit to him."

Scorpius whistled. "What did you do?"

"I left. Came back next day to apologize, and I hit him and told him we were done." She ran a hand through her hair. "So he's a closet blood freak. Any more questions?"

He shook his head. "I could see Bishop and Crowley doing something like this."

"Careful, though. I put them on the list because the voices sounded similar and I thought I saw Crowley's face. If it was her that I saw, it stands to reason that when she got hurt, Bishop yelled and ran over."

"Mm. So what are we going to do?"

"I don't know. Find out more about what happened from the recent victim. I would have said try to tail the suspects, but that's not plausible, and we'd have to do it each night. We'd never sleep."

"That's only a problem for me in the first place," Scorpius joked.

"Hush." She sighed. "We could wait till the victim wakes up."

"Or I could ask around a bit. Most of these guys are in Slytherin House. I could just ask if anyone's been acting funny lately."

Rose frowned. "You think you'd get anything?"

"You forget just whom you're dealing with here, darling." He flashed a crocodile grin.

"All right. Do that, then. We'll see what comes of it. In the interim, I'll speak to the other kid."

"Fine. Be careful."

"You too." She got up to leave and was yanked into a hug.

"Really. I expect no more of this cooped-up-in-the-Hospital-Wing-for-a-week business." He said it into her neck, and the feeling of his breath there was uncomfortable but comfortable at the same time, and altogether disconcerting in general. For a moment she thought about what it would be like if she gave in and pulled him closer, pulled his face up to hers, kissed him like there wouldn't be consequences. She forgot about eyes that pried into her soul.

She stepped out of his embrace. "So when do we meet back?"

He sighed, rubbing the side of his face tiredly. "Um, I'll need time, so—what day is it today?"

"Sunday."

"All right. Wednesday? Here? After classes?"

She nodded. "I'm proud of us. We actually planned for once," she grinned.

"You up for a celebratory Butterbeer?"

The daggers were dulled. He was looking at her that way, how was she to refuse? "Sure."

#

They were sitting at a table in the back of the Hog's Head, two glasses of the golden liquid that was the fuel of the average Hogwarts student in front of them. The waiter did not appear to recognize either of them, but they got a few weird looks as they came in. Rose had looked back at a girl wearing Ravenclaw colors who was staring at them for the fifth time when Scorpius said, "Hey, if we really wanted to shock them, we could go into Madam Puddifoot's."

"Oh god. That would be a sight." Rose laughed, distracted from the nosy Ravenclaw.

"Mm. I propose a toast." He picked up his glass, and she did the same.

"To what?"

He stared her straight in the eyes. "To this whole batshit venture that somehow made us friends."

She smiled. "I'll drink to that." She downed half the glass in one go.

He laughed, surprised. "You can really chug it, can't you? I'm not surprised you don't drink. You'd pass out in seconds."

"Shut up." She whacked his arm.

"But seriously," he continued, knocking back more Butterbeer, "I bet it would be really amusing to get you drunk."

She raised her eyebrows. "Is that supposed to be a roundabout way of hitting on me?"

"And if I said it was?"

She could have sworn she felt his eyes poking through to her spine. "Then it would be in bad taste."

"Ah." He sighed, flashed her a charming smile. "It was worth a try, wasn't it?"

"God, you're terrible."

He arched a brow. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Rose shook her head.

He sighed. "Funny, I used to think I understood women—"

"One of the few bastards cocky enough to presume, yes," she added, "go on."

"I used to think I understood women, and then I met you."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

They talked for about an hour and a half, sucking down another Butterbeer each. Finally it was almost time for rounds, which they hadn't done in forever due to the Ella thing and Rose's injuries. They paid and left, but they lagged and dawdled on their way back to school.

They arrived a little before the prefects' meeting being held in the Library was supposed to start, and decided to wait outside for a bit. They were quiet for a while. Then Scorpius said, "I had fun tonight."

Rose bit the inside of her cheek. "You're hitting on me again." She looked up, and he was in front of her, face dangerously close to hers.

"It'd be a lot easier if you weren't so perceptive."

"How so?"

He cupped her jaw in his hand. "You wouldn't know what's coming."

Almost of their own accord, her hands made their way onto his chest.

"Oh, don't do the chest thing," he whispered huskily, "I hate it when girls do the chest thing. I never know whether they're dissuading or… encouraging." Eyes like knives, prodding at her again.

Rose swallowed. "Well, it's—neutral, you know? Like, the girl isn't really sure what she should be doing herself."

"I see. So she wouldn't mind if—_the boy_ decided for her, then?"

Rose smiled. "Not this time."

His lips were hot and pressed tightly against hers, and he tasted like the merest hint of Butterbeer. He flicked his tongue out and she opened her mouth obligingly, getting the rest of the Butterbeer flavor and of course the overriding taste of the son of her father's enemy. She thought it tasted vaguely of apples.

They had each dragged a moan out of the other's throat by the time they needed air. Their eyes did not leave each other's as they panted, bodies trying to catch up with them.

"That was probably a really bad idea," Scorpius said. "I'm sorry, I—"

"It's fine. I would have thought that you'd figured out that I—didn't exactly mind."

He took a few gulps of air before saying, "Our dads would kill us."

Rose nodded. "My cousins would kill us. Actually, more likely just you, but possibly me too."

He nodded as well. "Right. So we should forget this ever happened, correct?"

"Correct."

Scorpius sighed and leaned next to her on the wall. He looked down the corridor. "Funny no one's here yet."

"Yeah."

He cleared his throat. "So, um, before we forget about this entirely—want to have another go?"

She laughed. "You're such a bastard."

"I'll have you know—" but by that time she had grabbed his chin and crushed their lips together.

They kissed fervently until Scorpius jumped away with an "Oh shit oh shit, someone's coming."

Annabeth Winston peered at them from the darkness, raising her wand so that the light emanating from its tip was cast about a larger area. "Hey there. Are you all right, Scorpius? You look a bit—freaked out." She frowned. "Come to think of it, Rose, you look a bit red. Are you still sick?"

Rose and Scorpius erupted into coughing fits. "Um—we—"

"I'm fine, Annabeth, I just—"

"Yeah, I'm fine too, don't worry about us."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Okay. Everyone else should be along in a minute." She went into the Library.

"That settles it," Scorpius said to Rose under his breath as they walked inside, "That girl is _definitely_ a closet Slytherin."


	11. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

Scorpius had not been writing to either of his parents—not that his father wrote often—so the morning after he kissed Rose and then had to go on rounds with Annabeth (who was nice enough, but was no fiery Gryffindor), he received a Howler from his mother. He did not bother listening to it, instead preferring to watch Rose giggling at his mother's screeching voice across the Great Hall.

But he felt bad enough that he hadn't written or listened to the bloody Howler, so since he had a bit of time before classes, he went back down to the Slytherin dorm and read the letters from his mother that had piled up on his nightstand. One letter about some fête his parents were holding caught his eye. Apparently they were inviting the new editor of _The_ _Daily Prophet_.

He sat back and sucked in a breath. _That's a bloody stupid idea. I could get in loads of trouble, and Rose would have my head. But… we need to get the word out. If we get the parents worried, maybe we can get the Ministry involved. The tip would have to be anonymous—they wouldn't believe a Malfoy, and Rose wouldn't do it because she's too proud and thinks she can do everything herself…_

He wrote a letter to his mother that was entirely bullshit, and then he wrote another letter to _The Daily Prophet_.

#

It was Potions and he was bored, as he invariably was during Potions, being too advanced for the class. This term, the Slytherins and Gryffindors did not have Potions together, so he couldn't stare at Rose. He was sitting next to Albus as usual, Bella Zabini in front of him and some girl he didn't recognize next to her.

He stared variously at the ceiling, the wall opposite, the desk, and very rarely the teacher. Normally he would see Albus's eyes mimicking his frenetic motions, but his friend's gaze was oddly fixed on—on the girl next to Bella. Scorpius nudged him and gave him a questioning look.

"I know her from somewhere. Trying to figure out where."

Scorpius raised his eyebrows. "Um, school? Just to venture a guess."

Albus snorted and elbowed him. "Don't be a prat."

"Why do you want to know?" Scorpius smirked. "Sorry to break it to you, mate, but she's not that fit." It was true; the girl would not have caught Scorpius's eye if he had been in a jail cell with only her and a glass of water for company. Her hair was a very dull brown, her skin pasty. The thin sliver of her face visible to Scorpius was dotted with angry red acne—her only distinguishing feature. Her robes fell awkwardly against her ungainly-looking body.

Albus repeated his previous sentiments. "I'm not interested in her. It's just annoying me, and there's bugger-all else to do in this class."

"Mr. Malfoy! Mr. Potter! Care to share your thoughts with the rest of the class?" the teacher asked sharply. He was new, so neither boy could remember his name.

"No, sir," Albus said meekly.

"Then kindly keep them to yourselves." _Well, we have been_, thought Scorpius, irritated. But he needed to be investigating tonight, not sorting ingredients in detention, so he kept his mouth shut.

About halfway through the class, Albus nudged him. Scorpius looked at him, but Albus directed his gaze towards a slip of parchment that ought to have been filled with notes. Instead it read:

_I've figured it out. That's Aliana Parkinson-Moreau._

Scorpius raised his eyebrows. That name sounded familiar… He scrawled back: _So how do you know her?_ He tapped his quill on his desk anxiously. _And how do I know her?_

He looked up at the teacher for a moment, feigning attention, then looked down at Albus's familiar chicken-scratch. _She's that bint that went nuts last year, remember? Attacked some kid, had to be escorted everywhere by a teacher for the portion of the year she didn't spend in the Hospital Wing? They almost sent her to St. Mungo's._

_I remember_. Blood was pounding in his head. He did remember. Parkinson-Moreau had been on Rose's list. _Who did she attack? What'd she do?_ And more importantly, why the fuck did they let her back?

Albus sighed, shrugged. _Fuck if I know. Someone in Ravenclaw, I think._

_So they'd know, right?_

Albus gave him a funny look. He took up his quill and slowly wrote, _Is this to do with you and Rose's thing?_

_Yeah. And also—why's Bella sitting next to her? She doesn't like touching the banister, she's such a germophobe. She wouldn't share air with a confirmed loony._

Albus shrugged. _She's trying to make you jealous again?_ He smirked.

_Oh, ha ha. Seriously, though._

_Damn if I know. Girls are unfathomable._

_Much agreed._ There the conversation ended, and class soon followed suit.

#

Scorpius took a breath and refused to look at Rose the next morning. The _Prophet_ had replied to his missive asking for more information, which he had politely declined to give them, easily lying that he knew no more. He figured she'd be storming over soon enough. He concentrated on his breakfast. _Fine toast, really_.

He still wasn't expecting the solid thwack to the back of his head and the, "What the fuck did you think you were _doing_?"

"Can I—"

"No! What gives you the right? I thought we were both in this, and then you just—"

He stood up, ignoring everyone's stares, and cupped her face in his hands even as she continued to vilify him. "Rose, shh. Can I explain?" he asked quietly and gently. He felt Bella Zabini's eyes on him, but ignored her.

"You'd better have a good explanation, asshole!" But she didn't push him away.

They walked outside, she furiously stomping, he trying desperately not to laugh at her antics. As soon as the door closed behind them, she whirled on him. "Well?"

"My mother is having a party and inviting the new editor of the _Prophet_. So I had the idea of dropping a hint."

"Are you aware of how much trouble we could get in for this? Whoever it is might _kill_ us!"

"Do you think I said our names? Who would believe _me_? It was anonymous."

"So? They knew it was us the other night!"

"That's immaterial. It's not like I gave specifics. Anyone could have told the _Prophet_. If anything's endangered us even more, it's your antics. And they know we're in this up to our necks anyhow."

She was nodding, calming, but there was a deep frown on her face and tension in her shoulders, her arms crossed angrily over her chest. "So now tell me why."

"If we get our parents worried, they'll press the Ministry to get involved. Which is what we wanted in the first place. We can't solve this by ourselves, Rose. No one, including whoever did this, is going to take us seriously, and at the end of the day, we're kids. We still have the Trace on us. We're effectively powerless outside of school."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He shrugged. "You wouldn't have let me. And then I'd have to go behind your back, which I didn't want to do."

She looked darkly amused. "So you wouldn't call this going behind my back?"

"Not by the Slytherin definition. I'd have to have told you what I was doing and you'd have to have told me not to."

She gave a tired laugh.

He smiled slightly, stepping a bit closer. "So am I forgiven?"

"No. Shithead."

Scorpius sighed. "I'm sorry. Really I am. But it makes sense, doesn't it?"

"That's why I hate it. And you."

"I know you hate me." He put his hands on her shoulders and brought his face close to hers. "That's why we kissed the other night, hmm?"

"I knew that was a dumb idea. You want a t-shirt? 'I kissed Rose Weasley twice and I survived'?"

"Well, I don't know. Twice? That's lame. Want to go for three?"

And then the doors slammed as James Potter burst through them. Scorpius jumped back about five feet. "Excuse me, Malfoy, but can I ask what the fuck you're doing with my cousin?"

"I'm not doing _anything_, Potter! Ask her!" Scorpius barked defensively. _Ohshitohshitohshit. Fucking _supernatural_ timing right there._

"Scorpius, shh, let me—James, he's not doing anything, honestly. We were just talking." She moved in front of Scorpius, protecting him from her cousin. He wanted badly to put his arms around her, to protect her from the same wrath she was protecting him from, or maybe just to make sure she wouldn't be dragged away.

"About what? Why are you spending so much time with him, Rosie? What's going on?"

"We—it's hard to explain, James, but—you know the whole—"

"Are you dating him?"

"I—no."

"Good. Don't get any ideas, Malfoy," he said venomously. "I don't really care what you're doing beyond that." He hugged Rose to his chest like a favorite toy, but his eyes were on Scorpius. "If you so much as touch her," he hissed, "you're dead." He let his cousin go and marched off.

Scorpius stared at her. "That was… interesting."

"Yeah, I—I'm sorry. He's just really overprotective."

"I'm surprised he didn't threaten to castrate me."

"He's all bark." Her face was flushed. "I'm sorry."

Scorpius smiled. "Are you embarrassed? Don't be. He loves you, and I'm the evil Slytherin bad boy. It's his job to make sure you don't get mixed up with me." He trailed a hand down her cheek. "And it's not like I haven't been threatened before."

She laughed. "You're so blasé about it."

"Yeah. So am I still on your shit list?"

She shook her head incredulously. "My cousin just threatened to kill you, and you're worried about whether _I'm_ still mad at you?"

He shrugged. "I don't care about that particular cousin."

"And I imagine you have the other one's approval."

"Well…"

She sighed. "And this is why he's in Slytherin."

"But I mean, it's not like…" He had been about to repeat what he'd said to Albus, that nothing could happen between them, but he trailed off, not wanting to offend her—or discourage her.

She looked up at him sadly, sympathetically. "No, it isn't, is it? I understand." She started to walk away, but he grabbed her shoulder.

"It's not that I don't want to. Never that."

She laughed. "God, you're so funny sometimes. 'Never that.' I know what you mean, though." Her hand snaked up to rest over his. She said the next part so softly that he almost wasn't sure he heard it, so quietly that he nearly doubted the words: "It's not that I don't want to, either."

They stood breathing together for a minute, then realized what they were doing and broke apart. "So, um, we have to get our respective tasks done. Did you talk to that kid yet?"

She shook her head. "I'm doing it this evening. Did you ask around?"

"A little bit. Nothing major." _Oh shit_, he realized, _I'm going to have to talk to Bella again._ He was about to ask her to come with him again, not caring how childish or ridiculous it sounded, but she was already wishing him good luck and then walking away.

He almost called her name, but realized that he shouldn't, because then he'd just embarrass himself by not knowing what he wanted her for—or worse, he'd kiss her.

"I love you," he breathed, just to try it out. It wasn't directed at her, not really. He just wanted to see how it felt to say something like that and mean it. But he could still see her face glowing that night when they had gone on their first reconnaissance under the Invisibility Cloak, two nights ago when he kissed her. And he wondered—why not? Why was it so wrong to want to say that to her, have her smile at him and say it back?

He shook himself. _No time to worry about that now. I have to get to class and then to work._

#

So his evening was spent loitering around the Ravenclaw dorm and around the Library, their stereotypical haunts. He talked to several people, including (awkwardly) Eva Laurence. He got a lot of suspicious glances and people asking why he wanted to know, but he was able to piece together most of it from the little that he gleaned from the more loose-lipped Ravenclaws.

Aliana Parkinson-Moreau had not been well-liked, even by her housemates in Slytherin, despite her mother's esteemed name—a fact clearly evidenced by the fact that neither Scorpius nor Albus had even recognized her at first. In the middle of Fifth Year, however, she had found a friend in Lucy Winston. The duo tended to hang around the Black Lake, insulting passersby (although this tended to be more Lucy than Aliana, who "huddled in Winston's shadow like a mouse hiding from an owl under a rock," according to one particularly vitriolic description). At last, a group of Ravenclaw girls got sick of it and started fighting back with words and hexes. As soon as the wands were brought out, Lucy backed down, and Aliana had been heading that way—until one of the other Ravenclaws called her a Squib. She had been so incensed that she actually physically attacked one of the girls. Before anyone had time to react, Aliana's victim's nose was gushing blood, her eye was black, and Aliana's fingernails had deeply scored her cheek. Someone had incapacitated Aliana with a well-aimed _Stupefy_, and then cast _Mobilicorpus_ and levitated her to the Hospital Wing.

No one knew much of what had happened after that, except that she'd stayed in the Hospital Wing for an indeterminate amount of time, subsequent to which teachers escorted her to each class. Rumors about a stay in St. Mungo's had, as Albus said, shot about faster than terrified Snitches, but as far as anyone knew no such stay had actually taken place. This year she had seemed completely docile and could never be seen in the company of Lucy Winston. No one knew if the other girl had been disciplined, but she "sure as hell doesn't act like it," in Eva Laurence's surprisingly bitter words.

The degenerate Winston sister was nowhere to be found, and he couldn't find Annabeth either. At around eight-thirty, he went back to his dorm and wrote down everything he remembered of the various conversations. He was then to report for rounds again. He frowned, thinking. _But I did rounds—two nights ago. I should be doing them tomorrow night. And why did the partners change? Annabeth and Ivers didn't say anything about it. _He tapped his fingers on his desk agitatedly. _I'll ask._

He left early and got to the Library, where they usually met, ten minutes before he was due there. Ivers was there too, so Scorpius walked briskly up to him and said in a businesslike manner, "So why've you changed the rounds, Ivers? I thought you were consigning me to a full term with Weasley."

Ivers leered. "Disappointed, are you?"

"Our relationship is purely professional. I'm wondering whether you were, though, when she wasn't completely tortured by having to spend time with me." He couldn't stop himself from leaning in closer to the shorter boy and saying, "When I was able to win her over, where you weren't."

"I couldn't care less. She obviously just wants to use you. She wants to use everyone."

"Just because she used you doesn't mean she does it to everyone, Ivers. Feel special. But you've changed the subject. Why did you change rounds partners?"

"It's safer for all of us. Clearly, someone's out to get Muggleborns. As you know, two of our prefects are Muggleborn. So if we have set rounds, they might get attacked."

Scorpius frowned. "This couldn't have been your idea."

"I don't see your point."

"Annabeth wouldn't think of something like this. She'd want to help, but she wouldn't know how."

Ivers sighed. "Well, we thought of it together. Alternating would keep her away from you, wouldn't it?" He didn't look at Scorpius. It was clear he wasn't referring to Annabeth.

"For rounds." Scorpius smirked with a confidence he didn't really feel. Of course Ivers hadn't thought of the clear obstacles in the way of Scorpius's dating Rose.

"Like she'd go for a Death Eater like you!"

Scorpius closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. "I. Am not. A Death Eater. Nor was I _ever_. Nor would I _ever_ be. I am not my father, Ivers, and it would serve you to remember that." He opened his eyes. "My father would be too scared to beat you into next week."

"Scorpius!" Again she was in front of him, glaring at Ivers. "What did you say to him? _What did you say_?"

Ivers stood up from where he'd been cowering against the wall and spat, "I called him what he is! He's a Death Eater, his father was a Death Eater—" he stopped when he saw her face.

Rose took a breath. "You jackass. You just—I'll tell you something, Ivers. It's amusing how you think you can just pick on people because their parents were on the wrong side in a war that you weren't even alive for."

"It's amusing how _you_ think you can just defend Slytherins! I'm sorry, but they did wrong in the war. Just because you like defending the helpless or whatever, and just because they're weak now, doesn't mean they aren't evil."

Rose stared at him in open-mouthed shock, disgusted by his blatant prejudice. Scorpius couldn't say he didn't feel like doing the same, but she looked ready to kill. Wanting to avoid conflict (and more time spent in the Hospital Wing), he put his hand on her shoulder, saying uncomfortably, "Rose, hey, thanks but you don't need to—"

"I will defend Slytherin House to my dying day," she hissed. She was clearly furious, more furious even than he had made her in six years of antagonizing. But then she continued. "There are people I care about in Slytherin. I _love_ them. That's more than I could ever say of you."

"Rose—"

"Fuck you, Weasley! Fuck you and your fucking murderer boyfriend! I know it was him that did it, and so do you! I hope you rot!" He stormed off, flipping them off as he went for good measure.

Scorpius and Rose just stood there for a minute. "I'm sorry, I—I don't know what his problem is," she said bitterly. "He's been like this since I broke up with him."

Scorpius sighed. "Well—"

She turned to face him, holding up a finger to stop him, "No, I know what you're going to say. It's just that he didn't make such a huge fuss when I broke up with him."

"Of course he didn't," said Scorpius softly. "Rose—I don't think you understand what you've done to him. It's not that I like him or feel sympathy for him, and it's not that I'm blaming you either, because I've probably done worse. But—can I speak honestly with you?"

She nodded, looking slightly confused.

Scorpius took a deep breath. "You messed him up, Rose. Somewhere in that yellow, narcissistic little heart, he loved you. He couldn't really see that you didn't love him back—" he waited for her to deny it, to say that she'd loved him at the time, but she was still looking at him expectantly, so he continued, "He couldn't see that you didn't love him back, so when you broke up with him—that was hard on him. And then, when he tried to punish you, to have it backfire—well, that just made things worse. He hadn't gotten over you, and then you added insult to injury by cavorting about with me. And finally, your defending me was the icing on the cake, because to him it signified that we were really—well, together. So that's his problem." He sighed. "I was surprised that you seemed not to know what you were doing to him, but I guess you really didn't, if you didn't know what his problem was."

She was hugging herself, looking down. "Oh. I mean—you're right. I never thought about it that way." She laughed humorlessly. "I feel blind now. And stupid."

"Don't. If men and women understood each other, we'd live in a very different world," he laughed.

"Mm." She looked up. "I think that's Annabeth. She's looking at us weird again." She sighed. "Guess we'd better tell her what happened to Demetri."

"Or an approximate version, at any rate."

"Scorpius Malfoy! Are you suggesting we lie?"

He snorted. "What do you think?"

"Good evening, guys," said Annabeth, and the prefects filed into the Library to start their meeting.

#

The next morning, Scorpius determined to talk to Aliana Parkinson-Moreau before he spoke with Rose later that day. He dragged a barely half-awake Albus over to sit next to her. "Hey, Aliana," he said brightly, putting on his most charming smile. He wasn't certain, but he thought he could feel confused brown eyes on him.

The girl looked up at him dully. She was uglier when he faced her head-on, but that was more because of the faded burns that ran up her left cheek and some of her neck than because of some inherent feature, although her pug nose, ill-matched with her wide mouth, did nothing to help matters. She blinked, shading watery blue eyes with lightly scorched eyelids, and asked, "What do you want with me?"

"I just figured you looked a bit lonely," he said, gracing her with his most winning smile again.

She stared at him for a while. "Fuck off. I don't want your pity."

"Then I won't give it," Scorpius said calculatingly, changing tack, "I actually wanted to see if I could talk to you later today."

"About what?" She still had that defensive look in her eyes. More quietly, she added, "Last year? That's the only reason anyone wants to talk to me, these days."

"Well, yes. I'm doing a bit of research—"

"On what? Pathetic Slytherin girls? Or are you just bored with fucking pretty girls?"

Scorpius blinked, startled by her sudden mood shift. She was glaring at him. "Um, no—I—"

Albus elbowed him, making his first foray into consciousness since Scorpius had dragged him down to the Great Hall. "Mate, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Shh." He sighed, turning back to Aliana. "No, I—I'm just—" _How do I make this sound not as exploitative?_

She smirked without humor. "Curious?"

"Yes," said Scorpius, grasping at straws, "and I wanted to see justice done. You see, I dated Lucy Winston for a while over the summer, and she was a total bitch. I want her to pay for what she did." That had been pulled completely out of his ass. He hoped it sounded convincing.

The smirk grew wider. "You're lying." _ Shit._ "But you're obviously desperate to hear my sad, sad tale. We'll meet just after classes in the Library."

Scorpius smiled. "Thanks. I appreciate it. I wish I could tell you the whole story." He didn't, really, the whole story being that she was suspected of being one of a group of young terrorists attacking Muggleborns.

The day passed quickly, segmented into almost arranging a meeting with Bella, worrying about Aliana, wondering how to distract himself from his feelings for Rose, and fantasizing about indulging them.

During Transfiguration, his last class of the day, he wondered whether Aliana would set up a trap. It was rather odd how quickly she had agreed to this little rendezvous, in spite of the fact that the reasons she thought he wanted to know were incredibly flimsy and shallow. And he had, after all, been recognized that night. But the Library would surely be crowded just after the end of the day, wouldn't it? He'd have to make sure he was in view of a lot of people during their meeting.

To his surprise and extreme discomfort, Aliana was waiting for him outside the classroom. He smiled awkwardly and said, "Hey, Aliana, I… wasn't expecting you."

She giggled. "I know. Let's go."

So he followed her and ignored the weird looks he was getting from those who recognized her—business as usual for a Malfoy. He paid halfhearted attention to everyone around them, trying to see if someone was following them, but since classes had just let out, the halls were flooded, and it was impossible to keep track of any one person for very long. Just as he was entering the Library, though, he met very familiar brown eyes across the room and grinned.

Aliana led him to a table near the back of the room. Surprisingly, there were lots of other people around—not all of them in Slytherin (or Ravenclaw). Scorpius relaxed a little. _Hey, maybe she just wants me to play therapist._

They sat. Scorpius cleared his throat. "So I already know the basics of your story. I just need to hear your side of it."

Aliana nodded. "Most people know even less," she said bitterly.

It was then that Scorpius felt cloth on the side of his face, heard someone breathing. _What the fuck?_ Someone kissed his cheekbone, then moved to his ear. "It's me," Rose whispered. He tensed, was about to ask how when he realized she must be under the Invisibility Cloak. He relaxed. "So I'm here," he told Aliana with a grin. _As is Rose._

She nodded again, remained quiet for a while. He was highly distracted by Rose's arms around his shoulders. But slowly, slowly, Aliana's story began to come out, and he listened carefully.

Aliana started guarded, stating what was clearly fact but not the whole truth. She had come to Hogwarts, and had not been accepted by her classmates. Her mother had not played a significant role in the war, not really, but it was the stigma of a traditional pureblood Slytherin name that drove people away, and she lacked the social grace and skill that had won Scorpius his allies and friends. She was alone, and decided she liked it that way.

In Fifth Year, she and Lucy Winston had been paired up to work on a Potions project. Lucy had clearly seen some of her own anger, loneliness and frustration in Aliana and befriended her. Mostly they just loitered, bemoaning their respective lots and yelling snarky comments to passersby. "Lucy said it helps, with the," Aliana frowned, "with the feeling alone. And the anger, especially."

Their most common targets were Ravenclaws, because Lucy knew them. Usually they just walked away, considering themselves too high and mighty to stoop to the level of a Slytherin and one of their own who was almost a Slytherin. There were three girls they faced off with more often than others, because they would often tell them to stop bullying people or reciprocate with insults of their own. Finally they got sick of it and pulled wands on Aliana and Lucy. Lucy had shut up almost immediately, muttering, "I didn't mean anything by it."

"She clearly thought I wasn't good enough at magic that we could beat them just the two of us," said Aliana. But Aliana resented the move, so she kept heckling. The girls were evidently too scared to actually do anything, so they rejoined with words. Finally one of them called Aliana a Squib, as was previously reported.

"So I yelled, 'My blood's so pure you could use it for a wand core, bitch!' and jumped her," said Aliana, snorting. She seemed amused by this. Scorpius tried hard to keep his face expressionless. He felt Rose shiver against him.

"After you 'jumped her,' as you say, you both were taken to the Hospital Wing?"

"Yeah. They wanted to chuck me into Mungo's or Azkaban, but Mama came by and bribed them."

"She's lying," whispered Rose. "I remember Dad telling Mum about it when they thought I wasn't listening. Pansy Parkinson had to beg and get the family doctor to vouch for Aliana's sanity."

Scorpius nodded, brushed a finger against his lips, signaling her to be quiet.

"And the rest of the year you were escorted places by teachers."

"They didn't want me to attack someone else." She chuckled. The noise sent tremors down Scorpius's spine.

"You stopped associating with Ms. Winston after the incident, correct? Why?"

Aliana looked at him sharply. "You sound like an interrogator. I did stop hanging out with Lucy. The bitch nearly got me thrown in the loony bin. What happened besmirched the family name enough already. Mama was rebuilding our reputation, and now—well, now we're back to square one. I bet she set it up on purpose. She was always jealous of my pure blood." She sighed. "So is your curiosity satisfied?"

"Yes. Thank you very much, Aliana." He got up, noticed that almost everyone was gone. They must have been talking for a long while.

"Hey, Malfoy? None of this travels beyond you and me."

"Of course." He turned and smiled. "Thanks again."

"Sure. But why are you thanking me for telling you about my problems?" Aliana came closer.

"Thanks for trusting me. You know." He smiled awkwardly.

Aliana smiled. "You know, I like you. You're nice and polite. I like a polite man."

Scorpius cleared his throat. "Um, I'm not that polite."

She laughed. "Calm down, I'm just kidding. Be seeing you, Malfoy." He let out a sigh of relief as she passed—that is, until he felt her slap his ass.

"What the—" he whirled, feeling intensely violated and freaked out, but she had gone.

He heard Rose's giggles. "Oh god, tell me that was you," he said, fingers on his temples. The Library had emptied out by now, with he, Rose, Madam Pince and some Ravenclaws across the room its only occupants, so he felt comfortable talking to the still-invisible girl.

"It wasn't," she gasped. "Oh god, if she weren't so creepy I think I'd actually like her."

He smiled, shook his head. "Come on, get that thing off so I can hit you. That was _not_ funny."

"No, it was hilarious. And it really depends _where_ you hit me, as we just saw." She sounded farther away than she had before, so he followed her voice to a space between the shelves. He frowned. "Rose? Where are you?"

Suddenly she jumped him, tugging him under the Cloak. "Gotcha!" she said playfully, giggling. "I'm Aliana Parkinson, and I'm gonna slap your arse!"

He laughed too. "Oh no! Not the dreaded arse slap!"

"Yes! You will never feel clean again!" She collapsed in his arms, smothering her laughter against his chest so that Madam Pince wouldn't hear and come check what the noise was. He put his face in her hair to quiet his chuckles as well.

Which, he noticed as his laughter died, left them in rather a compromising position. James Potter would flip if he saw them like this, her arms around his neck, his circling her waist. Evidently, she noticed too, because she tensed in his grip and looked up at him. He carefully tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Oh god." She moved away a bit. "Scorpius, we shouldn't."

"Why? Look, Rose, carpe diem! I've always been a disappointment to my father. I promise you, it's not as bad as it seems." He was laughing a bit, but he knew she could see sadness and desperation in his gaze.

"Spouting Latin doesn't make you right. And it's—it's not _just_ about Dad. I've had serious issues about relationships for a long time—"

"Hello? Who do you think you're talking to? Commitment was practically a swearword to me until—"

"No, look, it's not that. Look, I—I get _scared_, okay?" She was gripping his shirt, knuckles white. He ducked his head and saw that she was blinking back tears. He pulled her closer, ran his hand through her hair comfortingly.

"What are you scared of?" he asked gently. "That I'll hurt you? I know my past, and I don't blame you, but please believe me when I say that you're different. I—"

"It's not that!" She took a deep, shuddering breath and started talking quickly, so that Scorpius had to expend a lot of effort picking out the words. "Look, everyone in my family has such loss in their eyes when they bring up Uncle George or Remus. It hurts to see it! I don't want to hurt like that, not ever. I learned from an early age that love is a liability, okay? That's why I date jerks I don't care about. I promised myself that one day I'd find someone I'd be willing to take that risk for, but I wasn't expecting you to turn around and just _care_ about me, just look at me like I'm the sunrise after the longest night of your life! That's not fair, Scorpius, I'm not ready. And I don't want anyone I love to hurt like my family hurts. We bear the crosses of the dead on our shoulders, and it's a great honor, but the weight—it gets so heavy, sometimes."

She was crying now, quietly, so quietly, but she continued, "To love is to lose, Scorpius, and I'm still not entirely sure what it is I feel for you, but all I know is that for God's sake I don't want to lose you. My family has so much love, but we have so much grief, too. I can't care about you or I'll have to bury you, and that—I couldn't do that."

Part of him was screaming, "That's ridiculous," but most of him was filled with a deep, deep pain and sympathy. He almost felt her tears on his face, felt his hands were hers clutching his shirt but still trying not to get too close. He licked his lips and hugged her tight to his chest. "You can't believe that," he said lamely. "Everyone—everyone dies, Rose. We just have to accept that and live in the moment."

"I know everyone dies," she muttered into his shirt, "but it happens too often and too easily. The less people I love, the less I have to lose."

"Oh, Rose." He squeezed her to his chest, then tilted her face up so she met his gaze. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?"

She laughed bitterly, sniffling, "How dare you quote Tennyson at me at a time like this."

He looked at her and saw for the first time this very broken girl who'd been rushed into adulthood too fast. He wanted to fill those cracks in her, but they ran so deep, he wondered how she hadn't just shattered. He didn't know what to say to make her feel better, to make her feel whole for a little while at least.

"Rose…" How could he explain how he felt right now? He leaned in and kissed her gently. He knew then what he wanted to say, though he had no idea where these words and thoughts were coming from. They had just popped into his head, and he knew them to be right, so he said them. "Please have hope. I'm not going to force you into anything with me, but I do want you to have faith in the world again, okay? The fact that you love something is no reason to believe it will be taken away. Your parents have each other, and you and your brother, don't they? Your uncle has your aunt and his two best friends and his kids, too. The point is not that your family lost people they loved in the war. The point is that they carried on anyway, and _survived_." He hugged her one last time. "Please think about that. We'll postpone the meeting till Friday, okay?"

He stepped out from under the Cloak and left her there to think, fairly sure that that was the right thing to do. As he walked back to his dorm, he was amazed to find that despite his cynical nature, he really did believe everything he'd said to her. He hoped that the sun would shine through her cracks, that she'd find the strength to believe it too.


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

It was Thursday after classes, and Rose was contemplating the words of the most recent victim, Tim Harris. He was Muggleborn, obviously, but there wasn't any other connection between him and Ella. Not that there really needed to be one—the neo-Death Eaters' intention was pretty clear. They just wanted to spread fear in order to convince everyone that purebloods and only purebloods deserved a magical education. However, Rose felt that there had to be some rhyme or reason to these attacks. How were they choosing their victims? How were they timing their attacks? If it was all random, how could it be that they hadn't been found out yet? Randomness would indicate that the group was disorganized, so shouldn't it be pretty easy to find them out if they didn't have some kind of system?

The most interesting thing that Rose had noticed about Tim Harris during their interview was that he was not scared, as Ella had been. No, he seemed more angry than scared. He was from Gryffindor, so that was to be expected, but he did not seem cowed in any way, shape or form, which Rose found curious. It could be that he was good at hiding it, but why should he want to?

Her thinking was getting cyclic, and usually when that happened it was time to see Scorpius. But since her little breakdown yesterday, well…

He'd handled it well, made her feel safe, dare she say loved. But she had not. She hadn't meant to reveal so much of herself, and now she felt uncomfortably exposed. Her perfect mask had been ripped off, leaving her bare before him. Again.

Albus told her every now and then that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to let someone else in. She told him not to be ridiculous. "Trusting people is harder than it looks," she would say, and then the subject would be dropped, despite the worry in his eyes.

_How did I even turn out this way?_ She wondered sadly. _I mean, I grew up in one of the most loving families I've ever met. I never felt ignored, I fit in. Don't I?_ She sighed. _I guess our family is stretched a bit. It's large to begin with, but it's larger for the dead. The whole wizarding world is._

She rolled out of bed. She had been done with her work for a while—there was much less, since it was getting close to the holidays and everyone (including the teachers) was in a good mood. There was time before dinner, so she figured she'd go visit Albus and maybe see Scorpius, despite the fact that she could probably put off seeing him until their set meeting Friday.

Rose went down to the common room. To her dismay, there was a large crowd, of course with her cousin James at the center. There was yelling, and she realized she'd probably missed a Gryffindor Quidditch game. She tugged the sleeve of someone next to her and asked, "Who'd we play?"

He frowned. "Didn't you go? Hufflepuff. We obliterated them."

"Doubtless. Thank you." She sighed and started shoving her way through the crowd. She was nearing the door when she felt someone tug her close. "Did you see me? I beat the shit out of them, Rosie!" said James, turning her to face him and hugging her.

"Yes, I'm very proud of you, James, but I have to go—"

His face darkened. "You're not going to see Malfoy, are you? What _are_ you doing with him, anyway?"

"No, I wanted to see Albus. Bloody hell, James, are you my dad?"

"No, but it's my job to protect you from—"

"Malfoy's nefarious influence, I understand. I'll be wary, I promise," she said laughingly, and hugged him. "See you, James. Your fans await."

He was already turning away. She darted out the door and started walking the familiar route to the Dungeons. She made sure to go down crowded corridors—silly and paranoid as she felt, she remembered that _Sectumsempra_. The wound was still a bit tender.

The corridor leading to the Slytherin dorms was empty, the only sound her footsteps tapping on the stones. She shivered. "Why's it always so damn _cold_," she muttered, rubbing her arms.

She felt hands on her back and then she was on the ground, scrambling back to her feet. "Hey! Who the hell—"

And then she heard that nasty laugh that could only mean it was Peeves. "Haha! Not so quick on your feet now, eh, Weaselby?"

She brushed herself off, annoyed. "It's _Weasley_, Peeves. What's your issue?"

"What's yours? You're the lion in the snake's den."

"I'm visiting my cousin," she said coldly. "Now go annoy someone who cares, won't you?" She turned around and resolutely continued walking.

"Oh, but you should care, Weaselby," Peeves said, tittering. "Peevesy might know something you don't."

"Oh, like how to be such a useless poltergeist as to feel the need to annoy anyone who looks like they have something to do?"

"It's about those dirty Mudbloods you like so much," Peeves said, grinning.

She whirled to face him. "Alright, Peeves, you have my attention. There's no one around. What?"

"There's a time and a place for everything," said Peeves. After a moment she realized that he looked a bit anxious, which made her feel unsettled. _What could rattle the dead? Or, er, the—not really living to start with._

"All right. When and where?" she asked, her tone neutral instead of irritated.

"Midnight. The Astronomy Tower."

"And why should I trust you?"

"Because even Peeves is afraid of the dark things going on here. Mere self-preservation," he said, eyes slitted in pique.

"I'll be there. Thank you."

"You won't by the time this is over, Weaselby," he said, and before she could reply, he had faded into nothingness.

"Fucking ghost," she muttered, and turned the corner to where the Slytherin portrait awaited.

"Yes?" it asked.

She bit the inside of her cheek, hesitating. _I have to tell Scorpius about this, but… I don't want to lie to James._

"Hurry up, Weasley, I haven't got all day."

"Get me Malfoy, then."

It sighed. "You're welcome, Weasley."

"Thank you."

She waited tensely, didn't look up even when the portrait slid to the side and he came over.

"I missed you too," he said, smiling, "but I figured that if you could wait till Friday, I could."

She smiled back briefly, but all she said was, "Room of Requirement this time."

He shook his head. "I have a better idea. Nobody's using the Potions rooms this time of day. Why go all the way over there if we don't have to?"

"Lead the way."

He started walking, then stopped short and turned to face her, studying her expression. "That bad?"

She shook her head slowly. "Not… bad, per se. Just confusing. We may have another late-night engagement."

"Oh shit. Not the enjoyable kind, I presume?"

She laughed and flicked him. "I'll tell you in a minute."

"Aw, don't keep me in suspense that way. I need to know whether to make other plans if you shoot me down," he said, grinning as they continued to walk.

She giggled. "Oh, c'mon, Scorpius, keep your hormones in check, honestly. What I have to tell you is important."

He stopped in front of an oaken door and opened it, holding it open for her and presenting the room with a flourish. "This is where I spend fourth period rotting." She laughed.

Rose looked around for somewhere to sit, then smiled impishly and sat on Slughorn's desk. Scorpius sat on a front row desk.

"Okay. So I talked to the kid—his name is Tim Harris. But I'll tell you about that later or on Friday. While I was walking here, Peeves was bugging me—"

"This is news?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She kicked him lightly, only just able to reach. "Yes. Anyway, he said he knew something regarding the Ella thing, and he wants to see me at midnight in the Astronomy Tower."

Scorpius shrugged. "Don't go. He's full of shit."

"No, look, you didn't see his face. He looked scared. The only thing that seemed off was that when I thanked him he said, 'You won't by the time this is over, Weaselby.' I think I should go. He might actually have something valuable to say."

"Or he might just push you off the damn Tower. You're not going without me."

"Fine, but use the Invisibility Cloak, just in case."

"Do you still have it, or does Albus?"

"I do. I might only be able to get it for you right before we leave, though. James might decide to have a bit of post-game fun."

Scorpius raised his eyebrows. "Post-game fun?"

She grinned. "Just… watch yourself next time you go to the locker room before practice."

"I see." His eyes narrowed. "So that _was_ him in Third Year. That bastard." He laughed. "Sorry."

"It's all right. He is, sometimes." She paused. "I think he's onto us."

He arched an eyebrow. "There's an us? That's exciting."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "There's not. But there's… something, isn't there?"

He blinked at her. "I'd say. Unless you…"

"No, I…" she trailed off, not even sure what she was saying no to. However, Scorpius seemed appeased, so she continued, "Anyway, he asked me what I was doing with you. I mean, I didn't tell him, and he wouldn't have listened, but I thought you should know."

"…Yeah." He was quiet for a minute, then cleared his throat and said, "So, er, if he thinks we're messing around…"

She slid off the desk. "Yes?"

"Well, I was going to say—in this case I'd just rather not be falsely accused." His voice was about an octave below its normal pitch.

Of course, a rather passionate young couple chose this moment to stumble through the door, not noticing that the room was occupied until Rose coughed loudly. The boy looked up at them and said, "Malfoy?"

"Yes, Simmons, full points for observation," Scorpius said dryly.

"Weasley?"

"Yeah, it was the hair that gave me away, wasn't it," she retorted. "Uhm, now, if you'll excuse Malfoy and me—"

"No, like, what are you doing here? Together?" He grinned slyly and said, "Because if you were—" he gestured between himself and his now irate girlfriend, who was still firmly attached to him—"then I have to say, good on you, Malfoy." He snickered.

"Simmons, don't project. Miss Weasley and I were hardly in flagrante, and unfortunately I can't say the same of you and—" he leaned over to get a better look and raised his eyebrows. "Hello, Alice."

"Hello, Malfoy," she said huffily.

Rose cleared her throat, tugging on Scorpius's hand. "Anyway, if you'll excuse us—"

"No, so, what were you doing?" Simmons was still leering at them.

"Prefect business! Good day to you," said Rose, pulling Scorpius along as she marched to the door. She slammed it behind them and leaned against the wall, eyes closed, as Scorpius laughed.

"Was he still gawking on our way out? I couldn't see over the awkward," she said, looking over at Scorpius.

"Oh, I don't doubt he was. Sorry about your reputation."

She gave him a two-fingered salute, which only caused him to laugh more. "Great. Now James won't even let me out of the dorm."

"Oh, lighten up. Simmons will forget before dinner."

Rose made a dismissive gesture. "It's the look of the thing, Scorpius."

"Well, it's only the truth."

She reddened slightly. "Shut up."

"So when should I come meet you?"

"I'll come get you at your dorm at eleven-thirty."

"Doesn't take a half hour to get to the Astronomy Tower."

"I want to get there before he does."

Scorpius considered this a moment, then said, "That's probably a good idea."

She took a breath. "So—see you then?"

He was quiet. She was about to go when he said, "Should I walk you back up?"

She blinked at him in surprise. "If you want. Why?"

"You seem particularly prone to trouble in empty corridors."

Even if it was true, it struck a nerve. "I can protect myself."

"I know. Consider it—consider it my attempt at being gentlemanly."

"Pfft. Fine. If you can keep up. I've noticed you're awfully slow." She started to walk at a brisk pace.

He ran up next to her. "Harpy. I can keep up fine."

She laughed. "Harpy? That's a new one."

"Really? I feel honored."

She shook her head, suppressing a smile and the feeling that she was glad he came. "Oh, shut up. Just shut up."

#

As it turned out, James was not using the Cloak, so Rose was able to slip out right at eleven-twenty and head to the Slytherin dorms direct. Scorpius was waiting for her just outside the common room. She looked about for Filch before slipping the Cloak off and handing it to him.

"Why do I have to wear the Cloak?" he asked playfully.

"Because you're bigger than me. Easier to spot," she replied, smiling.

He had the Cloak on by now, so he said, "I'm flipping you off right now, just so you know." As an afterthought he added, "You could come under here with me."

"Yeah, but it's harder to walk that way."

"Hm. Also harder for me to eye you up if you're under here, I guess. It's a toss-up."

"You are _such_ a lecher."

"I know, I know. You think Peeves is lurking here somewhere?"

"I don't know. I mean, he wouldn't turn us in, anyway. Not if he really wanted to talk."

"Mm."

Their trip to the Astronomy Tower was quick and uninterrupted by unexpected bands of students or teachers. When they got up there, Scorpius started to take off the Cloak, but Rose said, "Leave it on. Maybe it's better he doesn't know you're here."

"Why's that?"

"He approached me and only me, didn't he? He might not talk if he sees you."

"Right, because I don't care whether he leaves dead things on my bed for the next six months."

Rose blinked. "What?"

"That's what he did last time someone pissed him off."

"Six months? Really? That takes conviction."

"He's dead. What else has he got to do with his—afterlife? Nonlife?"

She laughed.

"So the holidays are coming up."

"They are," Rose replied, only belatedly seeing the significance of the statement. "Oh! Are you staying with us? With Al, I mean."

"Ah, there's the question I was looking for. I'm hoping yes. If I can, we should think about how we can continue the investigation. We can't use magic, but we have more mobility outside of school than in."

"Right, right." Rose sighed. "Well, hopefully by that time we'll have more of an idea of who's involved in this mess." She paused. "What are your thoughts re Aliana?"

"Other than the fact that she's a few bats short of a belfry?"

Rose laughed. "It's 'got a few bats in the belfry,' Scorpius."

"Potato, potahto."

Rose cast a _Tempus_ and frowned. "Peeves should be—"

"And who does Weaselby think she is, that she can say what Peeves should or shouldn't be doing at this time of night?"

"Hm. You look a bit paler than usual, Peeves, or perhaps yellower?" The ghost made a face at her, but she continued, "What is it you wanted, anyway?"

"There's dark doings in this school, no doubt about it," he said, jittering and tapping his fingers. "Sons just like their fathers, mothers like daughters—new blood too, though, and it'll be spilt soon enough."

"What? Stop gibbering. You're no help to anyone if you can't make sense," Rose said, voice calmer than she felt. Peeves's vaguely prophetic-sounding mutterings worried her. She had never seen the poltergeist like this.

"Oh, what, Weaselby with her mother's brains can't figure it out? Sons and daughters of ghosts thirsty for blood! Crimes overpaid for breeding resentment and hatred. Sins of the father, sins of the children!"

Rose's mind was working furiously. "You're saying that the children of—of Death Eaters are doing this? Because they feel people are blaming them for their parents' crimes?"

"Nothing so simple, nothing so easy, Weaselby. They're snaring other children in with their nets, anyone who isn't accepted, anyone who doesn't fit in. And they're not doing it just for that. They want revenge for themselves and for their parents."

Rose frowned. "But why—I mean, no offense meant, but why should that worry you?"

Peeves was gesticulating wildly, his hands seemingly running against his will. He slammed the wall with his fist. "Don't you see, Weasley? Little children with warped little minds are going to do what their parents could not! They'll kill—they'll kill us all. Never mind purity, they don't give a damn for that—they're already damned. They're only starting with Mudbloods, don't you see? It's a warning shot, glancing off the nose of the ship, but if you let them they'll blow us all to smithereens! Bitterer even than Tom Riddle himself! These are children of war and loss." Peeves sneered, continuing, "Little old cat lady doesn't see it yet, not even with her fancy spectacles. She doesn't see how grief can drive you mad. She'll deny, deny, deny. She thinks Tom Riddle is dead. His body, maybe, and his spirit, but his legacy? He has shown these children how a little bitter boy or girl can be feared throughout a nation."

Rose felt a chill shiver down her spine. "You can't be serious. I mean, how could—just because—"

"Oh? I can't be _serious_?" Peeves snarled, suddenly leaning in far too close to Rose's face. "And what do you know of loss? What do you know of being knocked from your high pedestal, family shamed? They're too twisted by their parents' cruelty to seek love and not hatred!"

Rose was about to answer when she heard someone else say, "You're full of _shit_, Peeves!"

Rose put her head in her hands. _Oh fuck._

Scorpius threw off the Cloak and marched straight up to the poltergeist. "You are _so_ full of shit! What do _you_ know about it, huh? I'm here helping her, aren't I? Not all Slytherins are bad! I'm sick and tired of having my father's crimes pinned on me. I'll be known for my own damn wrongs, thankyouverymuch!"

Peeves just grinned. "Ah, the little Malfoy boy's just proved my point. That's exactly what they said, when they banded together. Too long have we suffered under the Muggleborns' yoke! You are a special case, Scorpius Malfoy. Don't think there are too many others like you. Slytherins are not evil, no, but they are by nature selfish creatures. If they are wronged, the first thing they do is look for someone to blame." Peeves paused a second, eyes narrowing. "I've given you a lot to think about, Weaselby, at great personal risk. I'll be seeing you around." He started to fly off.

"Wait! Do you know who's involved? Which Death Eaters' children?"

But he was gone.

After a while, Scorpius said, "Do you believe him?"

"What?" Rose had been too preoccupied to hear the question.

"Just—do you believe him? What he said?"

Rose sighed. "He didn't say _just_ Death Eaters' children."

"No. Even so, he mentioned them quite a lot." He wouldn't look at her.

Rose rubbed the back of her neck anxiously—found it covered in sweat. Peeves really had scared her. She walked over to Scorpius and put her arms around his waist, leaning her forehead against him. "What do you want me to say, Scorpius? It does sound like he wants to blame Slytherins, but what he said—well, it made sense."

"It was a bunch of hyperbole, Rose. Come on! The Death Eaters' children are going to round up a load of misfits and nutters and kill us all! Right, and Andromeda was in Venus last week, so the apocalypse is nigh." He turned around so he was facing her, brought his hands to her shoulders. "I just—I really would like it _not_ to be Slytherins again. I'd like to believe we're smarter than that, or at least more self-serving."

"I know, I know. But it's a lead, isn't it? And Aliana—well, she's Pansy Parkinson's daughter, isn't she? So we've kind of already been—"

"I know." He traced her collarbone absently. "I just wish… Well. If I had a nickel for every wish, right?"

"Yeah." She smiled sadly.

Something changed in the air. She became acutely aware of his body, her body, and the sparing distance between the two. They both leaned forward—and then stepped back. Rose cleared her throat. "So, er, we should be getting back—"

"Yeah. But, um, can you come over here again? Please?"

The way he said it melted her, and she stood in front of him, smiling shyly. He smiled back. "So did you think about what I said Wednesday?" he asked softly.

She swallowed nervously. "Yeah, I… you were sweet."

"And?"

"And what?" She was studying his shoes. Old sneakers, she noticed, as opposed to his usual loafers.

"Hey, look at me, won't you? Just tell me what's going on in that fiery head of yours."

She rubbed at her eyes, opened her mouth, closed it again. "I can't. I'm sorry. I just—letting people in has always, always been hard for me. It scares the shit out of me." She pursed her lips.

"All right. I mean, you don't have to…" he shook his head, sighed. "Good night." It felt like she had missed something important, hadn't said the right thing somehow. He started to walk away.

Well, she couldn't let him do that. She grabbed his hand suddenly, and as soon as she had his gaze she said, "But I'll try, okay? Just give me time. I'll try. If I—you know, it just feels like you see everything already. And that's scary in and of itself." She brought his hand to her lips briefly. "I'll try. That's all I can promise you."

He smiled at her—grinned, really. "I wouldn't ask for more."

Rose sighed, relieved. "Do you want the Cloak? Where the hell did you put it, anyway?"

"Umm… we'll find it."

She giggled. "Oh shit, you didn't lose it, did you?"

"No, no, look—"

"Well, that won't help, it's invisible." He laughed.

They did find it within five minutes, however. He used it to get to the Slytherin dorm, but made her take it back to her dorm. As soon as she got there, she collapsed into her bed and marveled at the strange sequence of events that had caused her to achieve emotional growth at the hands of Scorpius Malfoy, of all people.


	13. Chapter Twelve

_Okay. So this took for-fucking-ever. And I'm really, really sorry, but there is a good reason. was being a bitch and not working for me for a while, then I had to do some shit for school, then I wondered whether this chapter is pointless. I'm not sure when the next update is going to be; I might want to work on my original stuff for a while. So I'll try to update at least once a month, but the way things are looking now I probably won't be able to get in much more than that. That said, enjoy!_

**Chapter Twelve**

Two days later, Scorpius was still thinking about what Peeves had said. He thought about who might be stupid enough or hateful enough to do these things. To actually physically hurt another student. Peeves was right that Slytherins had their own best interests at heart, but seriously injuring other students—well, if he was being pessimistic, that wasn't the kind of risk a Slytherin might take.

But then, grief did strange things to you. He remembered that when his grandfather Lucius had died, his father wouldn't come out of his study for a week. His mother had had to stand outside the door, begging him to at least take some food. It was a bad time, Scorpius remembered. The family had lost a lot of money and a lot of pride…

Suddenly there was a loud knocking at his door, startling him into sitting up. "Who's there?"

"Who do you think?" came the barest hiss of a voice. However, the tension in the voice, and that peculiar timbre comprising annoyance and desire typical of it when it spoke to him, revealed its owner.

Scorpius laughed, getting off of the bed and walking over to open the door to the patch of thin air that disguised Rose Weasley.

"So what's up?" he asked, leaning on the doorframe.

She shoved his chest. "Let me in, you wanker! This took effort!"

He chuckled and moved aside, closing the door after her as she slid off the Cloak. As he was about to ask her why she had visited (though he was by no means displeased—she looked _very_ good in that green V-neck), she turned and pushed him against the wall, pressing her lips to his. Surprised but elated, he slipped his arms around her waist and kissed her back fervently. Her hands moved up his chest to grip his jaw, and he moaned as her tongue slipped in his mouth. He pulled her closer and kissed her harder, fingers toying with the hem of her shirt. His hands had just started to slide nonchalantly up her back when—

She pulled away, breathing hard. "I have something to tell you," she said, "and you're not going to like it."

He smiled. "I see. So all that was to sweeten me up."

"Yes." She looked troubled. "Look, er… I was walking around last night and I saw something."

He frowned, gently tilting her chin up. "What did you see?"

"Well, I…" she sighed. "I have no idea how to tell you this."

"Tell me what happened."

She looked down again. "You'll hate me."

"Is it that bad?"

She sighed. "Well, look—er—nothing's conclusive, but… So someone drew a Dark Mark on the wall of the seventh floor corridor across from the Room of Requirement—"

"Fuck's sake. Really? Was there—was there an injured person accompanying it?"

Rose shook her head vigorously as she continued, "I was looking at it, but out of the corner of my eye I saw someone pass rather hurriedly across the hall, and I went after them—"

"Merlin! Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten into?" He gripped the sides of her face, turning her head slightly, checking her for injuries. "I can't believe you—are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine! Stop that! What are you, my mother? Anyway, so, I couldn't see the person very well, but she was wearing a Slytherin tie and she had long, dark hair—"

Scorpius's stomach dropped as he realized where this was going. The thought flashed through his head that she might be lying—after all, Rose wasn't exactly fond of Bella Zabini—but as soon as it came up, he dismissed it. She would never try to incriminate someone just because she didn't like him or her. She had even refused to investigate Ivers until there was conclusive proof for that reason. He just wanted so badly for it not to be true.

She continued talking. "And then when I saw her in the light, well, it was pretty clear it was Bella. I mean, like I said, it probably wasn't her, and maybe she was just going to see Evan or something, and maybe I didn't see her right, but—"

Scorpius sighed deeply. "She's not that stupid. She's not. She probably was going to see Evan, if it was her at all."

"Yeah. Yeah." But she wasn't looking at him, and he could tell she didn't believe what she was saying.

He caught her uneasy eye. "But you think we should look into it."

"I can't help what I saw, Scorpius!" She sighed. "Believe me, for your sake I wish I hadn't. You know, and it's probably nothing. But—I mean, it's a bit coincidental. Not that many people dare to sneak around at night. And I mean—I was there earlier, and I didn't see it—"

"Please just—can I have a minute?"

She nodded, pressing her lips together in a pale, worried line. He took her hands in his and gripped them hard. After a few moments of silence, she said, "Look, we don't have to do anything you don't want to do. We don't have to ask her anything until there's proof."

Scorpius shook his head. "I'll ask her. I'll ask Finnigan, unless you think you should."

Rose shrugged. "Evan'll tell you anything you want to know. He's a Gryffindor."

"True. But then," he managed a weak smile, "so are you."

She stuck her tongue out at him and opened her mouth to say something, but they heard a faint call through the door: "Scorpius? You in there?"

Rose quickly picked up the Cloak and draped it haphazardly over herself, dashing into the corner as Scorpius opened the door to Adam Nott, one of his roommates. Nott had a thin, sharp, mean little face and very kempt, slightly stringy black hair.

"Merlin, Scorpius, I had to knock like eight times. What the hell were you doing?" Adam asked, strolling in. "I forgot the password again."

Scorpius let out a tense little laugh and said, "You should write it down or something. Al made it 'Slytherin pwns,' I think."

Adam laughed a bit derisively. "Yeah, that's an Al thing to do. Anyway, I was just going off to Hogsmeade. Aren't you?"

Scorpius shrugged. "I don't know. Might take advantage of the quiet to study or something."

Adam snorted. "You? Study? Have you gone nuts or are you trying to impress someone?"

"Who would I impress? You?" His eye unintentionally strayed to the corner where Rose was hiding.

"A girl. They go in for that sort of thing."

"Not the sort of girl you date," Scorpius said primly.

Adam cackled. "Oh, Scorp, I love it when you're bad-tempered." He sighed and said, "Speaking of, did you hear that McGonagall's considering revoking Hogsmeade privileges till someone fesses up to the Dark Mark?"

Scorpius blinked, surprised. "Really? No, I didn't." He paused and added, "Do you know who's seen it?"

Adam shrugged. "Lots of people. I was walking past this morning on my way to the Library and there was a huge crowd. I asked what was going on and they said shit like 'Voldemort's returning,' 'It's the end of the world,' et cetera."

Scorpius whistled. "Damn. And McGonagall is only _considering_ revoking Hogsmeade privileges?"

"Yeah. So I'm going to go now, stock up on Honeydukes. Have fun being a loser."

"Bugger off, Adam." And he did.

Rose stood up, removing the Cloak. "Took her long enough," was the first thing she said.

"Huh?"

"The Hogsmeade thing. People need to see this is serious."

Scorpius chuckled. "You're getting all prefect on me."

"You're one too. Just not a very good one," was her amused reply.

He grinned and pulled her close. "Well, that's why you're around." He sighed. "I'll go talk to Bella now, if I can find her. I want to get this over with."

She nodded. "I'll see if I can find Evan, if you're talking to Bella now. Save time."

"Mm." He inhaled her scent for a minute, closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of holding someone whom he loved and who loved him back. She was evidently content to stand so with him, just frozen in their perfect little bubble of intimacy. She tightened her grip around his neck, he his around her waist. _I'm really happy_, he realized. _In spite of all this shit that's going on around us, in spite of the fact that this can't go anywhere, I am at peace with her._ He bent his head a little and kissed her softly before both extricated themselves from the embrace, sharing one last longing glance before he walked over and opened the door with a half-resigned, half-regretful, "Shall we?"

#

Bella was not in her room or in the Slytherin common room, and he doubted that she would be in the Library, so Scorpius set out for Hogsmeade at an agitated pace. The euphoria induced by that small moment of peace while holding Rose had dissipated, replaced by a gnawing anxiety. For despite the fact that he scorned her and her affections, Scorpius did genuinely care for Bella. In fact, he did not want to date her because he knew he would break her heart (aside from the whole Rose thing). If she had done this, he had no idea what he was going to say to her, what he was going to do—what he _could_ do, anyway.

He decided to make straight for the Three Broomsticks, which Bella preferred over the Hog's Head, and if she wasn't there, perhaps he could ask others whether they had seen her. But luck was with him—she was sitting right near the front, laughing and flipping her hair as she talked to assorted friends of hers, most of whom he didn't recognize due to his unwillingness to give most of them the time of day.

She had evidently noticed him, as she grinned widely at him and waved him over. He took a tense breath and obliged, sitting next to her and the assorted friends.

"Scorpius! So glad you could join us!" said Bella enthusiastically, clutching at his arm. Her joy pained him. She had this certain effect on him whereby as soon as she wanted to be near him, he had to get away. But he forced the impulse down and managed a strained smile.

"Yeah. Great to see you all." As if he'd just come back from a five-month absence or something. But of course these people didn't notice. He was Scorpius Malfoy, the Slytherin prince. Dear Merlin, but he hated that title.

He listened to them talk about nothing for a good ten minutes before saying, "Hey, do you guys mind if I borrow Bella for a bit? I'd like to talk to her about something."

They all giggled as he pulled her carefully but firmly into the alcove that led to the bathrooms and the kitchen. Her eyes were bright with anticipation, and he wished he wasn't able to read her so well.

He cleared his throat. "Um… I… I have something to ask you." _Bad choice of words._ He sighed. "Er, where were you last night?"

Her face darkened. "I was with Evan. Why?"

"Look, um, what do you know about that drawing of the Dark Mark on the seventh floor corridor?"

She frowned. "Dark Mark? Oh god." Her frown deepened as she thought some more, and she said, "What do you mean, what do I know about it? What would I know about it?"

"Well, uh, I have it on good authority that you were visiting Evan and I thought you might have—seen something."

She looked at him disbelievingly. "Well, if that's all it is, then why do you look so nervous?"

He leaned back against the wall, but it looked more like he was bracing himself than like a relaxed gesture, which was what he was going for.

"Scorpius? Did you—do you think that I had something to do with it?" she said carefully.

He shook his head vigorously. "No. No. I—"

"Scorpius, I can tell when you're lying." Her face was white and she looked so, so tired and so, so sad. "I mean… I'm just not sure why you'd…" her voice caught.

He swallowed. "Bella, I'm sorry, I… I had to check. I know you wouldn't, really. But…"

She shrugged, and it felt like a slap. "Whatever. I just can't believe you'd think that of me."

He gripped her shoulders. "Bella, I didn't. I wouldn't. But I had to check. The Dark Mark wasn't there, and then you were, and then it was! I mean, wouldn't you be worried?"

She didn't shrug him off, but her next words stung him worse than that action would have. "No! Because I'd know you wouldn't do that!"

"Bella, I'm sorry, okay? I really am. But I just had to be sure."

She looked up at him for the first time in several minutes. "You should have been sure already," she said quietly.

"I know, Bella, I'm sorry. Please, I just—" he sighed. "I don't know. This whole thing is making me crazy."

Bella sighed. "I know. So why won't you just take some time off? Come back with the girls and me. We'll go to Honeydukes, Zonko's, whatever." She put her hand lightly on his arm. "Let me take care of you, hmm?"

Her lips were by his ear, and a break sounded enticing after the stresses of the past few days. But he didn't want to lead her on. He sighed. That was always the problem with her. He felt that he couldn't spend time with her anymore without her thinking that it was a sign that he returned her feelings. His bond with her had become as dead, dry October leaves—shriveled and breakable. He did not want to hurt her, but it seemed as though he could only do wrong in her presence these days, which caused him to avoid her.

"Thanks, Bella. But I really… I can't," he said carefully.

She frowned. "Why not? Are you doing more investigating? You'll work better if you take a break."

"Well, uh, I'm meant to meet Rose and tell her—"

Bella's eyes narrowed. "Rose? Rose Weasley? Since when is she Rose to you?"

Her tone was strident and unpleasant, particularly because she was touching on the complicated subject of his relationship with the other girl. "Since I started helping her with this thing. Calm down."

Bella sighed. "You know, I don't even get why you're doing this."

"What? The investigation? A number of reasons." He coughed uncomfortably.

"Yes, but what are they? And don't cough like that. You always cough like that when you don't want to talk to me."

_Fuck. She's so perceptive sometimes. I remember when I used to like that about her._ "Well—I just wanted Slytherin to come out the hero. And I thought it was ridiculous that the school wasn't doing anything, you know? Anyway, I should really—"

"Wait." She clutched his sleeve as he was trying to get past her. "I might know something."

#

Rose took another sip of the coffee they'd pilfered from the kitchens as she processed the information Scorpius had just related. "So. The plot thickens."

He snorted. "For the seventh time."

She smiled, but there was a certain wanness to it that he didn't fail to catch. There was exhaustion in the slightly weak curve of her mouth, in her eyes, dimmed and half-shut. He thought he must look that way, too. They needed a break, clearly.

He sighed. "Well, at least this time we have a concrete lead."

"Mm." Another sip. "I don't know, though. Didn't you say Owen Haines was a nobody?"

"Well, he's a transfer. From Wales. But the other, more important thing he is—well, he's Jeannine la Coeur's boyfriend."

"Ah." She grinned. "So we do have something."

"Yes." He sighed. "Well, so how will we go about this? If we question him, he's not going to say anything, and he might tell the others, assuming he actually is involved in this thing."

"Well, how sure did Bella say she was that she saw him when she was leaving Evan's?"

"Pretty sure. He's hard to miss. He's really tall and thin, and he's got a lot of acne. Very greasy black hair."

Rose nodded, sighed. "Well, I don't know. I mean, the most we can really do is keep an eye on him. But what seems funny to me is that they would do something like this, because after beating up two Muggleborns, it—well, I want to say it pales in comparison, though I know that sounds horrible." She thought for a moment and then continued haltingly, "I mean—it's inconsistent. Yeah. I mean, they start off with something as serious as physical attacks, which you can actually go to jail for, and then they do something like this, which seems sort of—juvenile, in comparison."

Scorpius shrugged. "Yeah, it's weird. But maybe it's some kind of sick reminder? We've not done anything for a while, but we're still here?"

"Maybe." Rose drained her coffee and thinned her lips. "It's just—we're restricted here. We still have to go to classes, still have to observe curfew occasionally. It's not like we're Aurors or—" her eyes grew wide.

Scorpius raised his eyebrows. "I sense an idea coming on. Care to enlighten me?"

Rose continued as if she hadn't heard him. "I can't believe I didn't think of this before. My family has amazing connections in the Ministry. Surely we could find someone to help us with this without alerting the school's attention."

Scorpius frowned. "I'm not so sure about that. I mean, we're doing okay on our own, aren't we? And also the school might get shirty with us."

"Yeah, but come on, Scorpius. They've injured three people, two of them almost fatally. We really should have tried to bring the Ministry in earlier. And if the school gets shirty with us, well, we're in the right." She was standing up now, pacing in her excitement. She began to mutter the names of relatives and friends, trying to think of who would be most helpful.

"Rose, I… that's not going to work for me." Scorpius was looking down at his hands. She wasn't thinking of the possible consequences it could have for him if they brought the Ministry into it and the school got angry with them.

But she hadn't heard him. She kept walking around the room, continuing with her monologue. "Maybe Kingsley would recommend someone? But no…"

Scorpius stood, taking her by the shoulders. "_Rose_. Listen. It would be a good idea to bring the Ministry into this, but I don't think it will work. And while it might not be a problem for you, the school getting mad at me would be a very big problem. Believe me, it may not look that way, but if they could find any reason at all to kick me out of this school, they would. And I know how that sounds, but I—" he broke off, looking at her helplessly. "Look, if it needs to be done, I mean…"

Rose was frowning, taking his hands in hers and saying, "Hey, hey, what was all that about kicking you out? They wouldn't. You're a star student, for all your troublemaking." She smiled affectionately for the last sentence, but it didn't obscure the worry in her eyes.

"Yes, but I'm also a Slytherin, and haven't we learned that that's what's important multiple times over?"

Her grip tightened. "Scorpius. They daren't kick you out on those grounds."

This irked Scorpius. Yes, she was trying to reassure him, but she was also protecting her own view of Hogwarts as a safe and happy haven. Hell, it hadn't been in their parents' years and it clearly wasn't now. Rose was definitely aware of the full terror and infamy of the crimes these neo-Death Eaters were committing against their fellow students, but fundamentally, she still saw Hogwarts as a second home, as the only place where she was really, truly safe.

While it was a second home for Scorpius too, he had to fight for his place here. His flippancy, as well as his and Albus's frequent practical jokes, might have led people to think that he didn't take school seriously, but that wasn't true at all. He worked quite hard to do well in classes even if he couldn't toe the line outside of them, and he was always careful to check Albus if his friend came up with a totally heinous prank. He was notorious amongst the student body, but he was not notorious amongst the teachers because he was very conscientious about not getting caught.

He sighed. He didn't really want to burst her bubble, but he had been trying to get the point across for some time. "No, they daren't, Rose—which is why I have to be so bloody good at school. If they could find an excuse, any excuse, to get rid of me, then they would."

She was frowning again, and she wasn't looking him in the face. "McGonagall wouldn't—"

"McGonagall is older than she used to be, and scared. Especially in view of these recent attacks."

She was biting the inside of her cheek and her eyes were bright with worry and unease. "Scorpius, that's not fair. She's in her right mind, and she's always been a fair woman."

"Yeah, but wouldn't you say it's a bit harder to be fair after you've lived through a war such as the Second Wizarding War? And rightly so."

Rose squirmed. "She wouldn't—"

"She couldn't help it, Rose," he said softly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. But I'd be risking a lot—am risking a lot. I just would like you to understand that."

"Okay. I—I don't know. I'll—I'll see if I can think of something. How to do this. Maybe I'll try to ask someone—" she sighed. He could tell she was still upset, and waited for her to put her thoughts to words. "Do you really think they're trying to kick you out?"

Scorpius sighed, looking at her drawn, tired face. Was he going to lie to her to put her at ease?

She was looking at him now, and apparently saw the doubt in his eyes, for she said, "Tell me the truth, please."

"Yes." He touched her shoulder reflexively, quickly added, "But really, don't worry about it. They won't. I'm very careful."

She nodded slowly, but didn't say anything more.

He still felt uncomfortable, as she was clearly so disturbed by the notion that Hogwarts was not as pure a place as she thought it was. He felt he should say something, anything, to cease her worry. "Rose, I—" he gave up. "When should we meet again?"

"Monday, after classes?"

"Sure." He turned to leave, wishing he hadn't said anything. But as he left, he felt her take his hand. He looked at her questioningly, and she smiled slightly, shyly, pulling him in for a kiss. This time it wasn't quite as rushed, and Scorpius found himself relaxing into the slow feel of her lips on his. And how long had it been since he'd felt like this—namely, very, very happy in the company of someone else?

She walked him back to the Slytherin dorms, and they held hands and didn't give a shit about anything for a while.


End file.
